http://www.dartswarehouse.com/shop/L-Style+Dart+Accessories/Shell+Lock/Shell+Lock+Punch.html

Looks good but not that cheap, but I guess once you have the punch you have it for life:

Looks like a good idea with the grooves to keep the flight at right angles - could you use the new Whizzlock punch instead with these caps as that is a third of the price

Not sure about the Whizlock, think its a slightly different shape, but I could be wrong.

my friend who is a local dart supply retailer (she brings supplies to local tournaments and leagues and such, as the closest retail store is a 2 hour round trip drive) will be getting one soon. she carries a lot of laro and l-style products so this was the next big thing for her to get from them. she said she'll sell the caps and let you use her punch, so i'll be giving it a go next time i see her and she has it. i'll have to let you guys know when i get a hold of some of the caps. i'm interested to see if i'll like it better than the regular punch/ring combo.

gonna stick with me cosmo's

Quick question, is there any benefit from having the flights splayed at 90' angles?

Reason I ask is couple of lads from our team flatten their flights almost flat (like X-wing from Star Wars ) and they are 2 of the best players in the league.

I myself have always trusted my eyes to get them something like 90' and am wondering if the slight misjudgement on my part (un-noticable to the naked eye) would matter?

I like the idea that it stops Robin hood's but I am a little sceptical about the 90' issue, can someone put me right

Cheers,
Greg

CanadianBacon wrote:

my friend who is a local dart supply retailer (she brings supplies to local tournaments and leagues and such, as the closest retail store is a 2 hour round trip drive) will be getting one soon. she carries a lot of laro and l-style products so this was the next big thing for her to get from them. she said she'll sell the caps and let you use her punch, so i'll be giving it a go next time i see her and she has it. i'll have to let you guys know when i get a hold of some of the caps. i'm interested to see if i'll like it better than the regular punch/ring combo.

Cool, will be interested to know how they are.

Rebel wrote:

Quick question, is there any benefit from having the flights splayed at 90' angles?

Reason I ask is couple of lads from our team flatten their flights almost flat (like X-wing from Star Wars ) and they are 2 of the best players in the league.

I myself have always trusted my eyes to get them something like 90' and am wondering if the slight misjudgement on my part (un-noticable to the naked eye) would matter?

I like the idea that it stops Robin hood's but I am a little sceptical about the 90' issue, can someone put me right

Cheers,
Greg

I'm not sure it would make much difference either way, I just prefer mine to be a + shape instead of an x, the old feather flights where always a + shape but they fly different any way due to the material and size, they feel more floaty, but I doubt it makes a huge difference to plastic/poly flights.

Rebel wrote:

Quick question, is there any benefit from having the flights splayed at 90' angles?

Reason I ask is couple of lads from our team flatten their flights almost flat (like X-wing from Star Wars ) and they are 2 of the best players in the league.

I myself have always trusted my eyes to get them something like 90' and am wondering if the slight misjudgement on my part (un-noticable to the naked eye) would matter?

I like the idea that it stops Robin hood's but I am a little sceptical about the 90' issue, can someone put me right

Cheers,
Greg

Well there's not much distance between release and landing with a dart but even so, the shape could have an impact.

x-wings in star wars fly through empty space most of the time so assuming the thrusters are adjustable (at least a little) you would have much more maneuverability at high speeds.

However, when you have air to contend with an object that you want to stay level should have ideally two wings in the horizontal plane and one in the vertical for stability and maneuverability.

If however you want an object to ROTATE in order to stabilize itself due to inconsistent thrust and zero after-release steering (a dart or arrow), the best option is three or four at opposing angles to one another.

An X shape (as opposed to a + or three pronged Y ) will try to level out like an airplane to fly straight forward having two wings level-horizontal and two vertical as the air resistance is distributed evenly over the surface of the wings. It's probably a small effect over the distances we're talking about but there is probably a slight "flapping" motion as the amount of resistance to spinning is higher as the flatter "top/bottom" surface of the x flips around.

The + shape will offer resistance more uniformly across the wing surface and should therefore stabilize more quickly and therefore stabilize the spin rate (and if it had continuous thrust eventually stop spinning more quickly) leading to a more graceful parabolic arc and more consistent impact angle to the board.

In theory.

In practice, I doubt most of us could really tell a difference.

But, if you happen to be a guitar player and have a pick handy (or just a set of fresh flights for you non-guitar players), pull the flight out of one of your darts and put either the pick or the still flattened flight in and have a chuck.

The farther away from + shaped you get, the closer to -- shaped you get and if you do this experiment you'll see that -- really, really sucks. So, I try to keep my flights + shaped and have bought both the L-style and Cosmo setups to experiment with.

Bravo Chalk! I think that explanation just about covers it


Thanks for your time in replying lads, appreciate it,

Cheers,
Greg

Yep hats off to Professor Chalk

Sounds like a good explanation to me, not sure how much affect it will have, like you say over a short distance but I am sure the top players will know.

Why not try some Spiraline flights? They spin like sycamore seeds when the dart is thrown:

http://www.swiftflyte.com.au/spiraline-flights-std-and-sycamore-spinning-flight.html

getagrip wrote:

Yep hats off to Professor Chalk

Sounds like a good explanation to me, not sure how much affect it will have, like you say over a short distance but I am sure the top players will know.

Why not try some Spiraline flights? They spin like sycamore seeds when the dart is thrown:

http://www.swiftflyte.com.au/spiraline-flights-std-and-sycamore-spinning-flight.html

Ah, those are interesting. I'd love to try them actually to test my theory about "rifling" through spiral mounted flights. I know that on some arrows the flights actually don't go straight down the shaft, the rotate around it slight which doesn't just ALLOW the object to spin to stabilize itself but FORCES it to. But!... It never stops spinning whereas with flat flights the spin would be slight reduced with each revolution until it stabilized nearly perfectly. That's kind of their job: "line things up straight to get the %$# out of the way of the passing air."

Whereas these bad boys always have something getting in the way of the passing air.

Now I'm not a physicist but I do know that resistance enough to force an object to rotate translates to lost inertia. If you think about it, what's causing the spinning is that a little bit of the flight is slightly opposed to the wind being generated by the object moving through the air, effectively slowing it more rapidly and causing the arc to steepen.

Like you said, we're not talking about a large distance, a large object or even a lot of force, but I'd be curious to see if I could even tell a difference and if the accuracy gain of even faster stabilization (which would definitely happen with the spiral flights) would be worth it.

Good find grip! I'll have to give those a go next time I order something.

Thats interesting Mike, because the air resistance on the spiraline flights makes the dart feel more floaty, I have some on my GLD Warriors:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
218a. GLD Warrior 23g by dazdart, on Flickr

I like the fun element of them and keep meaning to a vid of them in flight to let people see how much they spin, but I wouldn't use them long term as it feels a little strange to throw.

Crows Darts have a review of them here:

http://www.crowsdarts.com/reviews/spirline.html