Sabre 3

What a great canopy! My experience has been amazing with the Sabre 3 line, I've jumped them almost exclusively from 230-135 sqft with some demos and rental days on s-fires, safires, and sabre 2s. I'm loaded at 1.35 and I feel like this is where the wing starts to wake up, it doesn't have any of the muddy feeling inputs the larger sizes had, the harness feeling starts to develop and you can really get it moving in a dive! 

The Opening: I would say it opens reasonably well, it typically opens pretty quick, 600ft. is probably average. Sometimes, I get crazy off heading openings, I've had the usual 90° off heading with the occasional wild 360°, I don't know if they are body position induced, packing, or a variety of things working together but the wing is controllable so quickly you can just make the appropriate input while checking your surroundings and it will do whatever you tell it. It's also not out of the ordinary to have to manipulate the rears to get the slider all the way down. 

The Performance: In just one word, Versatile! The rears have gotten me back safe and sound from some spots that I KNEW I wasn't making it back from. It's extremely predictable which is confidence inspiring. The brakes have a ton of range and slow flight performance is impressive, it can hang in deep brakes forever without sacrificing controllability or risking a stall. When inducing speed with the fronts it builds speed quickly and can be forced to keep diving if you need a little more before the fronts get too heavy. The rears have a lot of power and made it easy for me to make my first of many rear riser landings! When you transition to toggles there is immense stopping power, you can always get a nice tip toe landing even in no wind conditions.

The Conclusion: I love this thing! I think it has been and continues to be a wonderful platform to learn basic up to high performance skills and maneuvers. I look forward to progressing further and seeing what else this wing has to offer at the next step!

Update on my new Sabre 3 150 canopy form Performance Designs  
I received it July 9, 2020 and have made 72 jumps with it from 25th July - 15th Aug .......  I'm very happy with it. I previously was jumping a Sabre 2 150 and before that a Sabre 150... I weigh 170 lbs.
The first 6 jumps were at Meadow Peak Skydiving the weekend before the 53rd Lost Prairie boogie to install the canopy and work out the flight and landings before the boogie as I like to jump a lot at the boogie  
Chris Walker the rigger took care of attaching it to my new rig (Vector V3 V310) and adjusting (Shorten) the brake lines after my test jumps.... The elevation at the airport is 3,400 ft and landings have been my biggest problem here. More than a few Homer Simpson landings for me here. One of the biggest selling points to me was the powerful flare for landing after that all the other improvements were gravy. The openings were smooth, on heading and no end cell closure after opening. Wow wow wow a big improvement from my previous Sabre canopies.
With the brake lines set and a few jumps under my belt I was ready for Skydive Lost Prairie Boogie the next weekend. I made 63 jumps during the boogie and improved my stand up landings at the Prairie from an abysmal less than 50% to 90% .... I was stoked as the year before I ended my jumping before Boogie end due to a Homer Simpson landing and bruising my bad knee .... grr. 
So landings were my biggest criteria to fix. Thank you Sabre 3  
Canopy performance during flight seemed to be in par with what I had experienced with my Sabre 2, but I only have 63 jumps on my Sabre 2 to compare it with.
The flair at landing is powerful so I had to use it wisely and ease into but once you figure it out ... OMG its awesome. I had so much fun at the Prairie again this year. So many friends and so many jumps!!! Missed a lot of folks who could not make it this year and hope to see them next year.
I then followed up by making 3 jumps the next Saturday at Mid America Sport Parachute Club in Taylorville, Ill with some Rapid Decent Skydiving Alumni.

Thank You Performance Designs for an awesome canopy.

Curtis J. Langwell

D-25292

USPA: 148615