been outta town for work for practically a month. purty much isolated in austin texas rebuilding a machine on site for a customer...i did bring my dartboard though! so for the first time in my life instead of staring at a computer i opted to stare at the board.

so i did a lot of thinking and experimenting (of course), and want to ask the guys who really throw 180s (i've thrown one in my lifetime)...about their experience w/ tri fin flights and the like.

i ask because i reckon they are superior to quad fins across the board from a scientific perspective. just curious about everyones opinion on them personally?

if you've never thrown one before---- cut a fin off a flight and bend em till they're spaced evenly, and feed my curiousity =D.

double post sorry ---- =(

basketcasE wrote:

double post sorry ---- =(

I deleted the other one

Good to have you back. I've never actually tried tri flights, I might just take your advice and try them for the craic.

Bigshow wrote:

basketcasE wrote:

double post sorry ---- =(

I deleted the other one

Good to have you back. I've never actually tried tri flights, I might just take your advice and try them for the craic.

they don't much love for a few reasons. the important one is people feel they have to change up their throw somewhere to benefit. do not =)

the other reason, the obvious one: the shafts are specific and are more expensive to manufacturer. (3 cuts instead of 2). they also only last half as long. you lose a finger on a tri shaft, it's useless. on a quad shaft, it takes two adjacent fingers to break for it to become truly useless.

3 fins are more stable than 4 fins. sounds counter intuitive but many examples exist all around us. it's the understanding that an odd number fins, spokes, legs, etc.,. each sit on a separate plane when even count does not. the important axis here is yaw (Fishtailing). all three fins are exposed to air currents on both left and right sides constantly, simultaneously. each one constantly applying pressure towards the center of the dart.

if you look at a 4 fin, you'll understand this isn't possible one flight is always shielded from currents on the opposing side. this unbalance in drag will have the dart correcting in a fishtail all the way to the board. there's just not enough distance for it to subside. to compensate ppl use wider flights which is good, but once stable in air they will act like sails.

i'll shut up now, that's my primer. it should be interesting to see what you have say. and thank you, it's good to be back -=]

here's some visual inspiration. great white has settled on this setup (lol) after 16million years of refinement.

3 fins for stability.
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I think someone did some sort of research and found the optimum number of fins for a flight was either 3 or 5 - so why we use 4 I don't know.

I've used Cosmo Delta flights which are 3 finned and they do fly good - but I'm old school and used to 4 fins on my flights, so 3 just looks wrong to me lol

I tried them too but never liked them, it is a little strange though as I remember seeing an ad for a 5 fin flight and they said it would be more stable???

can you get 3 fin flights / stems that are not cosmo? wouldn't mind giving them ago ,but not at cosmo prices .

yes - they are called trifins - doesn't look like they are there now but A180 used to sell them, but if you don't mind shopping in the US then A-Z sell them

http://www.a-zdarts.com/Category/Flights/Category/Tri-Fin.aspx


I'm sure I've seen them somewhere else over here though lol

Looks like they are made by Retriever Sports - maybe they can tell you who stocks them over here in the UK

http://www.retrieversports.com/site/section.php?xSec=140

cheers for that

Yeah I have those and the Cosmo ones.

hmmm might try it

They are quite nice. They do look weird as we've all been used to 4 fins. They fly straighter IMO but too fiddly when trying to open them. I quite like the idea but they need to be like cosmos or L flights.

getagrip wrote:

I tried them too but never liked them, it is a little strange though as I remember seeing an ad for a 5 fin flight and they said it would be more stable???

in theory 5 is more stable than 4.

4 is just a bad number when it comes to a lot of things.

easy way to center a 3 fin flight on a 4 stem.. is to break a finger off. if u wanna go further break off 2... slide one fin into the 2 fingers.. glue it in place.

mc1958 wrote:

I think someone did some sort of research and found the optimum number of fins for a flight was either 3 or 5 - so why we use 4 I don't know.

they are cheaper to manufacturer. if u look a flight that's fallen apart it's usually 2 pieces of paper back to back. a trifin would have to be 3 pieces of paper. machining the slots on a quad shaft is 2 cuts w/ a slitting saw, thru n thru. tri stem would requiring indexing, and 3 precise cuts.

--- update.. been using tri's for a week and haven't looked back. if your initial interpretation is they "Fly funny" it's cuz there's less drag.

equalling the drag of a 4 fin by increasin' flight size gives you the benefit of more stability (or however u wanna use that extra flight surface area).... for "Free".

------- when these hit the floor, they always land on two legs =) (durable)

hmm, might have to give them a longer run and see how it goes then.

you need to stop that gif ! .......... just leave it on the 1st frame

you find a slik stik top that fits them and Ill give it a go otherwise ill stick with four fins

Very interesting point!

How do these darts fly if you add spin to your throw?
Would an odd numbered flight affect this??

odd is better for spin. in terms of a propeller, odd numbers enable each swoosh of a blade to "attract" the next blade via pressure differences, like a special vortex gift for the following blade only. there's some synergy goin' on although i don't fully understand all of it. study on fishes fins recently brought to light certain fins are "tuned" to work in the wake of another fin. also, arrows that spin usually have 3 fletchings. in the case of darts, wing span has the greatest impact on roll.. i've experiemented before and regular ol rectangle flights 4" wing span (2" on each side of shaft) will prevent the dart from spinning, period.

in even numbered all of this is canceled out. here's a visual make it easier, although it's a structural example.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
to simplify just assume the wheels are static loaded @ the hub, parked. visually u can see w/ 4 spokes there's unbalance, opposite side always an identical mirror image, meaning --- half the wheel isn't as strong as the other half.

w/ the 3 spoke, opposite side is an inversion. always balanced (by principle of course). next time you're outside, pay attention to how many spokes most car wheels have. cool phenomena imo (the odd number thing)


good ol' page on odd numbered engineering stuff: http://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=247494


and some bling bling....

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I think the science is fun but not sure how relevant it is to most darts players because if we believe what the Uni Boffin says then the Unicorn Sigma are the perfect darts but as we all know there is no such thing.

tru dat ..... it is fun for me, plus.... someone's google search will lead em here, light a fire to to throw my theories into the port-a-poddy... and you'll have a new member...

the sigma is a nice dart...one of the better flight shapes at least.