Hi All,

I did a little setup testing with my DPC Darts and I found that they seemed to work with any flights on my normal short stems - this included Standard, Slim, Pears, Dimplex, Kites, DXM and Mini Standard.

Now I have never really compared performance differences in Flight Shapes/Types as I have always found that I could often throw only with Standards but this is obviously not the case with these darts. For example with Slims on other darts they always land at a very sharp angle to the board.


So my question is :

Do you choose a Flight Shape/Type simply on the landing angle and the consistency of it doing (Eg every shot lands at the same angle) or Have any of you noticed an actual improvement in your darts when comparing different flight types?


The reason I ask is that I am unsure whether I just choose the flight which I prefer the landing angle of, or if I have to do a comparison test on the performance of each?

I think I will do a test on each, just so I am happy, but I just wondered if any of you have noticed any difference.


Also, how would you recommend that I test them so I can compare?


Many Thanks,

James

if wanting arc darts going in like andersons get some bobby george flights that just come out.

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I tend to use standard shape mostly, I have tried other shapes, some seemed to make my darts fly quicker and others I was not sure what the difference was, the standards seem to suit my throw best, but I have a few more I want to experiment with.

For me it was not the angle I was bothered about more the floatiness through the air, the smaller flights generally been too quick for my liking.

But I think its worth experimenting for a while with different shapes of flight and also lengths of stems, if you dont try a little experimentation with the set up you will never know whats best.

Firstly... everyone throws differently. We all hold the dart in different spots, throw with greater or less speed, so everyone will have different results.

That being said, I used to play with 23-24 gram barrels for years and always threw a standard sized flight. My darts always used to hit the board with the flight leaning to the right a bit. I was never sure why my darts did this, I just put up with it.

Than I switched to a lighter barrel and with that I went to a slim flight. Instantly my darts started going in dead straight and flat. Something I REALLY liked. So I tried a slim flight on heavier darts and they did the same thing... straight and flat. I wish I would of tried different flights earlier. I might of improved quicker.
The reason slim flights work for me, and I'm guessing here, is that I throw pretty fast. Maybe there is less drag with a slim flight? For whatever reason they just work for me.

So basically you're just going to have to try a bunch of different flights and find out what you like the best. With some flights you'll find they go into the board at angles you might not be used to. You just need to find out what works best with your style of throw.

The most commonly used are standard, pear and kite. Standards suit the lobber with a lighter throw as the surface area stabilises the dart in flight making it straighten up by the time it hits the board. Pears suit the straighter, quicker thrower as there is less surface area to affect the drag of the dart. Kites are somewhere in between the two.

This isn't to say that if you are lobber you shouldn't use pears - as said above you need to do you own trials to see which works best for you.

Yes there are several other different shapes but they aren't as commonly used - but if you know which of the 3 common ones suit you then chances are that you will be ok using other flights of a similar surface area (at least that's what I've found for myself anyway).


As far as the stems are concerned again you will need to do your own test on these, but in my experience - again purely me - everything works with a shorter stem, but the longer the stem the more surface area I need on the flight to be able to throw it.


As a quick tune up tester kit I would recommend getting a couple of sets of stems in short, tweenie and medium (possibly extra short as well), and a couple of sets of flights in standard, pear and kite (plus maybe some slim and delta).


Another thing to bear in mind when selecting standard shape flights - not all standard flights are the same size - different manufacturers have different sized standards. eg the Target Vision flights are slightly smaller than Unicorn standard flights.


And yet another thing to add to the equation - flights can be of varying thicknesses. The thicker the flight the heavier it will be and may affect the balance of your dart. Again you need to find which thickness works for you, but I would suggest something in the 100 micron range as that is in the middle, such as the Target Pro 100 range (they cover several shapes in this range).

With my fittons, I have 48mm stems with either big standards (Whitlock size) or slims.
Standards make them stand up at about 60* angle from the board and the slims lie down at about 110* so it make it easier to pile them on.
It's all about testing different shapes and sizes and find which one suits u best

As an addon to my post above I knew I had it somewhere on my pc, here is a pic of the different surface areas of of different shaped flights.

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Do u know where I can get triads in the uk?
Grandads asked me to find some for him

Unfortunately I don't know anywhere in the world you can get triads - it's an old picture and I'm not sure that shape are made any more. I suppose I should try and find a more recent pic without them on lol.

I've been on the lookout for some triads for a while myself. I reckon the best place is to keep checking ebay - although I haven't seen any on there for a while either, and the last lot I saw I got outbid in the last couple of minutes.

My grandads got 2 alimimium sets

Aluminium dart flights - can you get some pics of those as I've never seen metal dart flights before lol


As far as the Harrows triad flights are concerned, it looks like there is a shop in the US that has them, so I'm just about to order some lol.

Once i get my hands on them, I'll upload a pic. They've lasted him 20 years!

u can get triad flights from edarts.net but personally the delta flights are better.

I have seen ally flights too, very old 1940's ones.

coolhandfluke wrote:

u can get triad flights from edarts.net but personally the delta flights are better.

That's where I found them - just waiting for the invoice to pay now lol


Thanks for the pic of the alu triads - they look quite good for being so old

I use standard flights all the time and to be fair always have. Every now and then I will dig out some pears, kites delta's etc and have a throw with them just to see if it makes any difference to my throw and it clearly does. I am a flighter so my darts are thrown up and then come down to hit the board and they land in at around a 25 degree angle. If I use slims my darts land flat at 45 degrees and I don't like that as I feel I am having to throw harder to reach my target and this feels un natural to me. I always say to people experiment with flights and stems using different lengths and materials to get the feel of what suits your natural throwing style the best, and i say the natural throwing style because I feel that it the most important part of your game. A lot of players change their throw to suit the darts I feel this to be wrong and think that the darts should be an extension of you. I feel I could throw anything even rusty nails when I have them set up to my natural throw and this is because I am confident in my abaility and that I know that my throw is solid and fluent. So I would say paly with the set up you think feels and suits your throw the best but never be afraid to experiment a little as it could improve your game or reinforce what you already know that your set up is correct so it's a win win situation for me. Worst case senario is that you change for a while and your form drops off so you go back to what worked before.

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I have always used pear flights, they suit my throw best. I now use these L-style champagne Astra flights. As you can see the surface area is very similar to a pear flight. These are the shape of the sigma flights but larger. I love these flights and they look cool IMO. Standards are too big and get in the way, for me. I've been using this set for 6 months and they are still in great shape. Sold on the champagne flights!

here in the a180 shop we have learned so much over the years, darts are 70% important,.
But your flights and shafts play a big part in how your darts fly,
if you can play just as good with small ones do it,
But Quite a few use slim or DXm Like phil taylor, but the darts fly very bad and affects there game .
In this case keep to standard or the V180 flights, or Unicorn tough as they slightly smaller,
hope that info helps someone

A180darts wrote:

here in the a180 shop we have learned so much over the years, darts are 70% important,.
But your flights and shafts play a big part in how your darts fly,
if you can play just as good with small ones do it,
But Quite a few use slim or DXm Like phil taylor, but the darts fly very bad and affects there game .
In this case keep to standard or the V180 flights, or Unicorn tough as they slightly smaller,
hope that info helps someone

Hello and welcome to the forum!

Thats true about the flights, I think the speed of your throw can affect what shape you like, a slow throw tends to suit bigger flights and a quick throw smaller flights, but there is always differences to that as its a case of finding what you like and what suits your throw and the weight of your darts.

Its fun to experiment though

hi .. wer can i see pics of the metal flights..

Hi Doc, I dont have any myself, but I have seen them on listings in Ebay, but sadly I never won it.

The ones I seen were a similar shape to the Silver Comer flights but had a ridge type of pattern.

Thanks mate will try finding them there... just want 2 see wat they look like

They are my metal triads

have you throwing with those flights.. ??

They fly amazingly. Straight and VERY durable

Have you got them long... do they last longer than normal flights..... and can they be got in Kite shape... sorry for all the Questions

My grandads had them for 30+ years so yes they last longer haha
I don't know about kite shape. Metal flights are very rare so they'd be hard to find. PM me if you want more info

These are the metal flights I meant, Mark (dartbord) has them:

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