B
B. Harvey
Guest
This is a question I have seen a couple of times and several have answered that they do lie, but then put a smiley behind the sentence or whatever.
If we look at what a windflag is, and how it is made, then it is easy to believe that they lie, and often.
Props, all of them I would guess, have a certain amount of slip, cavitation or whatever else you would call it. But they would have a certain speed where they are most efficient, and give the truest reading. My props are a 10" pitch and if you do the math, after maybe 1.8 mph (and giving them time to fully ramp up to that speed) are at 3 revolutions per second. After about 5 mph they might as well be solid discs.
If you have 4 flags, then trying to keep track of rps would be unrealistic.
Enter the tails. Some are very light and some are heavy. The light ones, after maybe 3-4 mph have given you about all it can. The heavy ones aren't worth dirt before maybe 3 mph and might be good to 7-10 mph, or until they are past a certain angle.
If you look at survey tape, it just flutters about at any speed. I have never been able to get along with this stuff. Sail tails (light or heavy) are much better but also have a working range.
Tails, as they rise, loose the initial surface area they had and the more they rise the less they have. This makes me wonder if a tail at say 45 degrees takes less or more wind to push it up even more. What I mean is, say it takes 4 mph to get it to 45 degrees, does it then take another 4 mph to get it to 90 degrees? Since it looses surface area it would seem to take more wind. But since it is getting pretty flat, does it get the float effect and actually take less wind to push it higher? Also, if a tail is out flat at 7-8 mph, and the wind is actually 12 mph, you already have a 4 mph error built in.
The vane just does what it can to tell direction and it seems to do a pretty fair job at that. It does seem to do a better job than a prop or tail.
My flags are a combination of a Wayne Smith flag, with two tails, one a snuffy light, the other a 2' piece of VHS tape, and a 2 blade 15" prop on a slow flyer gearbox. They are balanced very well.
The props start turning at below .5 mph. The VHS tape starts fluttering just before the props start. The sail tail starts at around 1 mph. The vane will turn in a little less than a 1 mph wind. This flag is sensitive.
Now, at the PSL match, the wind at times had my tails parallel with the ground, the props looked like solid disc's. Don't know how fast the wind was blowing, but I was holding quite a bit. It was during these times, as well as a few others, that my flags were lying, or they were totally missing something that was making me miss.
The Kettlefoot PSL match brought forth a desire to have an indicator that would respond quicker, and give a better indication of speed, as well as visually help show which conditions were more stable.
After testing for the past week, I have found something that has verified that my flags are not as good as I thought they were. My flags actually miss a ton of activity that is happening. They either respond anywhere from 1-2 seconds behind the test piece, or they flat miss the condition change all together.
The funny thing is that, with going to matches and seeing other flag, prop, tail designs, and anything else I could look at, it made me think I had the best flags that could be had.
A friend of mine brought up a very good point though. He asked, "If all the other guys shooting had crap windflags, how could they beat you"?
This made me ponder a few other thoughts. One mans treasure is another mans junk, and if I thought all the other flags were sub par, how then do these guys shoot so well? How do they read the flags so well when the flags have built in limitations or errors?
I know what you are thinking, "I don't shoot when my props are turning that fast, or if my tails are flat"
If this is true you'd score a ZERO if you went to a match where the wind was a constant 10-20 mph. Not to mention any windflag I've seen would be useless except for direction.
These things at least confirm in my mind that the top shooters already know the limitations of there equipment, and how to work within those limitations to achieve what they do.
But yes, flags do lie.
If we look at what a windflag is, and how it is made, then it is easy to believe that they lie, and often.
Props, all of them I would guess, have a certain amount of slip, cavitation or whatever else you would call it. But they would have a certain speed where they are most efficient, and give the truest reading. My props are a 10" pitch and if you do the math, after maybe 1.8 mph (and giving them time to fully ramp up to that speed) are at 3 revolutions per second. After about 5 mph they might as well be solid discs.
If you have 4 flags, then trying to keep track of rps would be unrealistic.
Enter the tails. Some are very light and some are heavy. The light ones, after maybe 3-4 mph have given you about all it can. The heavy ones aren't worth dirt before maybe 3 mph and might be good to 7-10 mph, or until they are past a certain angle.
If you look at survey tape, it just flutters about at any speed. I have never been able to get along with this stuff. Sail tails (light or heavy) are much better but also have a working range.
Tails, as they rise, loose the initial surface area they had and the more they rise the less they have. This makes me wonder if a tail at say 45 degrees takes less or more wind to push it up even more. What I mean is, say it takes 4 mph to get it to 45 degrees, does it then take another 4 mph to get it to 90 degrees? Since it looses surface area it would seem to take more wind. But since it is getting pretty flat, does it get the float effect and actually take less wind to push it higher? Also, if a tail is out flat at 7-8 mph, and the wind is actually 12 mph, you already have a 4 mph error built in.
The vane just does what it can to tell direction and it seems to do a pretty fair job at that. It does seem to do a better job than a prop or tail.
My flags are a combination of a Wayne Smith flag, with two tails, one a snuffy light, the other a 2' piece of VHS tape, and a 2 blade 15" prop on a slow flyer gearbox. They are balanced very well.
The props start turning at below .5 mph. The VHS tape starts fluttering just before the props start. The sail tail starts at around 1 mph. The vane will turn in a little less than a 1 mph wind. This flag is sensitive.
Now, at the PSL match, the wind at times had my tails parallel with the ground, the props looked like solid disc's. Don't know how fast the wind was blowing, but I was holding quite a bit. It was during these times, as well as a few others, that my flags were lying, or they were totally missing something that was making me miss.
The Kettlefoot PSL match brought forth a desire to have an indicator that would respond quicker, and give a better indication of speed, as well as visually help show which conditions were more stable.
After testing for the past week, I have found something that has verified that my flags are not as good as I thought they were. My flags actually miss a ton of activity that is happening. They either respond anywhere from 1-2 seconds behind the test piece, or they flat miss the condition change all together.
The funny thing is that, with going to matches and seeing other flag, prop, tail designs, and anything else I could look at, it made me think I had the best flags that could be had.
A friend of mine brought up a very good point though. He asked, "If all the other guys shooting had crap windflags, how could they beat you"?
This made me ponder a few other thoughts. One mans treasure is another mans junk, and if I thought all the other flags were sub par, how then do these guys shoot so well? How do they read the flags so well when the flags have built in limitations or errors?
I know what you are thinking, "I don't shoot when my props are turning that fast, or if my tails are flat"
If this is true you'd score a ZERO if you went to a match where the wind was a constant 10-20 mph. Not to mention any windflag I've seen would be useless except for direction.
These things at least confirm in my mind that the top shooters already know the limitations of there equipment, and how to work within those limitations to achieve what they do.
But yes, flags do lie.
..I have tried to get a polygraph on my windflags, but they will not answer any of the questions...
