d3o Armor…
Feb 19th, 2010 by Leo
This is straight out of the movie Dune…if you move slowly the material will bend and give, but try to move it quickly and it won’t let you. Great for snowboarding gear, and even better for motorcycles… The US military even uses it to stop bullets! So where can I get my hands on some d3o body armor? Right now the only way is to buy gear with the armor installed: Armadillo, or FirstGear.
Now I haven’t seen the stuff first hand, and I’m not in the market for any gear (although I like the Armadillo parka) – have any of you bought gear recently with d3o? I’m interested to know if you feel a difference wearing it.
Related posts:
I found a review on D3O on Gizmag… One of the editors gets whacked with a frying pan to compare the new tech to standard protection and says it’s got great potential but it’s not there yet:
http://www.gizmag.com/d3o-motorcycle-armour-trauma-test/14227/http://www.gizmag.com/d3o-motorcycle-armour-trauma-test/14227/
…all well and good, but d3o left the guy with some pretty good bruises, and compared to Aerostich’s TFx armor, it doesn’t cut it as well. Note that the d3o rep. herself writes after that video blurb and says that their standard has to be raised for m/c-related use.
FWIW, d3o in its current application isn’t CE approved like Knox and others. With FirstGear wanting $5 bills for a jacket with d3o, I’d say it ought to at least be as good as Aero’s Darien armor — and even be CE approved (which Aero’s isn’t, but they acknowledge that).