So....my new Blackbird arrived today along with my WB tarp and Yeti. Kudos to Brandon for getting them to me a earlier than I had expected (though the last three days have been the longest of my life. I actually had two DIFFERENT nightmares about the BB getting sent to the wrong address last night! )

In spite of the fact that I have a very important meeting tomorrow morning, I immediately dropped everything to play with my new toys. After stringing the hammock across my tiny apartment once to check that everything was there, I headed to the closest park to try it out "for real."

Setting up the BB was a real pain. I mean terrible. ... It took me all of three minutes to string up the hammock and stake out the sides. Piece of cake! I did play around with the suspension a little to get the tension just right, but even that took only about five minutes or so. After that I first tested the hammock with the netting tossed over the ridgeline ("Shug-style"), and then with the netting zipped all the way up.

Man this thing is comfortable! The footbox works great, and there was actually far more space than I had expected. At first I did experience a bit of shoulder squeeze, but I quickly figured out that the problem was that I was not lying diagonally enough. I also haven't quite found the most comfortable place for my head (It seems to want to slide off towards the zipper), but I figure this is simply a matter of time and more experience. I ended up hanging for only 30 minutes or so, but that was solely because I was worried about falling asleep in a public park

Overall, I am more than pleased with the BB. It is extremely well designed and constructed, and super easy to set up and adjust. Hats off to Brandon for this superb product, and thanks to all of you for the great info on this forum

Lynx