Buoyancy compensators are used to attain neutral buoyancy underwater. They offset the negative weight of our equipment and breathing gas. So, for our equipment to be as stable as possible in the water, the wings need to go as close to the source of the negative weight as possible, and this is generally the cylinders.
Wings “cradle” our cylinder(s) and, because they are behind the diver, do not clutter or interfere with our movement in the way that a jacket type BC will tend to do.
The wing should be chosen according to the concepts we looked at in the article on the balanced equipment configuration. It should not have too much lift, as this will mean that the wing will flap around and cause drag, and reduce our efficiency in the water.
Wings essentially come as either a single tank or a double tank type wing. Unfortunately, the two types can’t be used interchangeably. A single tank wing is too narrow to fit a double tank set-up, and a double tank wing would wrap around a single cylinder and be quite unstable in the water. Wreck and cave carry a few different types of wing. For double cylinders, we have the Explorer and the Evolve, and for single tanks we have the Eclipse.