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manta 280

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And before that the company was Django and the parachute was known as an LR288. It seems to have evolved directly from the 7-cell Pegasus (now named Fury).

Tom



And it was all started by Mike Fury. A very good friend of mind lives on the east end of Lake Mary.

Sparky
My idea of a fair fight is clubbing baby seals

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Post: I've just packed a Manta and it had 9 cells, strange


Not strange, you're right. It's my understanding that only a handfull of 8-cell Pegasus canopies were made (I've got one). I hear that the results were so encouraging that another cell was added to make the LongRange-288. The Pegasus/Fury is 220 s.f. Maybe this is a case of good design leading to sucessful variants. Sort of like the 265/283/302/327/350 Chevy V-8 block.

Tom

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Well, they still make both(Manta and Fury) canopies. Along with a big bunch of other 7 and 9-cell canopies in different sizes.

From the Flight concept website:

The nine-cell range is:
Wildfire 170, Clipper 195, Raider 220, Maverone 250, Manta 290, Man-O-War 320

And the seven-cells:
Cricket 145, Firelite 175, Maverick 200, Fury 200, Fury 220, Sharpchuter 245,
Startrac I 265, Startrac II 290, Startrac III 320 .

The sizes seem to have varied a bit; I've seen the Manta being labeled as a 288, and the Maverone as 248. Maybe they just rounded the numbers .

I also seem to remember a smaller nine-cell called the "Hummingbird", but I guess there wasn't that much demand for a ~150sqft F111 canopy. I'm pretty sure not too many people who value their ankles jump the Cricket as a main.:P

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Trivia point, Django's LR-288 started life as a military canopy for the West German Army (HEER).
Back during the Cold War - when the communists got uppity - the West Germans planned to HAHO a bunch of vandals ... er ... special forces types ... deploy them high in West German airspace and have them drift into East Germany where they could amuse themselves blowing up bridges and telephone exchanges and railroad switches, etc., slowing the communist conquest of Western Europe.

LR-288 was never really big enough for jumping with ruck sack, rifle and snowshoes, but it proved to be an important step in the process of developing larger ram-air canopies.
Bill Booth - or Ted Strong - did a few jumps on an LR-288 in the early stages of inventing tandems.

A few LR-288s got into civilian hands and everyone was surprised at the huge "sweet spot" of this 9-cell. LR-288 radically changed the nature of civilian static-line training in the early 1980s. Since LR-288 glided much flatter than 7-cells, the angle of arrival was much shallower and students could slide out their landings instead of pile-driving the way they had previously under rounds.

Who woulda thunk that merely sewing two more cells onto a Pegasus would make that big a difference?

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No one said anything about small block or big block.



But they did imply a single sized block!:P

That's why I left off the 396, 427, 454, and the oddball 409.



...or 348 which preceded the 409.

Russ

Generally, it is your choice; will your life serve as an example... or a warning?

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