Founding a new worldwide Primitive flightbow federation?

[Badger]

  I like that Allen, You have started making notations on shots at the flats and I always enjoy seeing them. I would go for that rule that notations be made when shot natural.

 Lately I have done better with the silk because of it ability to even out tension I am able to go considerably weaker than I do with the linen. I use flemish which is much harder to get 100% even. My typical string weighs about 175 grains with linen and about 125 grains with silk. If fast flight was about 100 grains ligher on the average it would boost speed about 6 or 7 fps. In broadhead this might amount to 15 yards. I always like to compare modern longbows to the primitive longbows in the broadhead division because we have similar rules. They use a 550 grain arrow. We use a 500 grain arrow with a natural string. It works out to put us almost on an even playing field.

[DC]

In sailboat racing the rules are incredibly strict but for some races(smaller meets) the race director is allowed to ignore some rules. So in the notice of race it gives the pertinent info and says rule so and so will not be in effect. This gets all the rules in the book but still allows a little flexibility.

[Badger]

  DC, thats not a bad idea. Something like sanctioned and unsanctioned shoots.  I was thinking about something like this anyway. If a group was just froming it would be nice that they held a couple of practice events anyway to get themselves up to speed as archers and officials. It could make introduction to the sport a bit easier as well as making it easier to organize an event.

[avcase]

I planned to take the approach DC suggested for our next shoot in Oregon. My plan was to reference the existing rules but note which restrictions won't be strictly enforced. This way, it provides an easy entry point to those interested in Flight without the need for a totally new set of rules. It also gives the option to have record status shots if we do have the qualified officials on hand and entries that meet meet the strict equipment requirements.

Alan

[Buckeye Guy]

You folks keep up the good work !
This is sounding good to me !

[redhawk55]

"Natural fiber strings would be a good topic on its own"

Alan, that's very right. I'll not see it happen that we allow synthetic strings and plastic nocks in our rules.

"I feel like the event really loses it's soul without natural strings", So it  would be with plastic nocks too.

I can`t believe that it should be such a heavy task to get longfibre linen for to make great strings even biologically grown.I admit my wife is a weaver, so I've an easy access to the string material. But use your search engine and you'll find this super- linen, real best quality: http://shop.flachs.de/produkt/leinengarn-nm-2651-kba-blauschwarz/#!prettyPhoto[product-gallery]/1/, they offer 19 different linen- yarns for bowyers!. I guess there is a similiar supplier in the US or Canada too. Go for their whole offer and you'll be done: http://shop.flachs.de/?filter_anwendung=41&query_type_anwendung=or.
This is a network of growers of different natural fibres, they even offer the seeds.
The problem with linen- strings is that linen likes wet climate. I' ve posted in several forums to store your linen- fibres, yarns and strings in a wet salty atmosphere, that's all.
I use a very thin linen for my strings and count about 1strand/lbs, that makes a 40 strands- string for my flight- shorties( 40-48lbs). I can' t remember a break of one of these strings.

Steve, I thought about your proposals for the rules and classes.
As I understand it you're going for the regular flight- classes as before and we'll adding pure flight classes too?
So what will be the class for my "inuitish" styled short mollies in practice? 30degree recurved long skinny tips, 44"- 48" in length, 40- 49lbs/ 21"- 23".
Michael

[Ian.]

Maybe this has already been said but natural strings are great on normal bows but are far more difficult on heavy ones. I know some have done it but only with Eastern fibers (yumi strings) not natural European stuff. For safety and numbers I don't think it would hurt to allow synthetic strings on heavy bows.

[Badger]

  Michael, that would be regular flight and traditional flight. The little innuit bow would have to fall into the tribal category with a notation for the type. Tribal bows would be shot in the traditonal classes so maybe we could just lower the minimum arrow length for all the shorties.

   Regular flight we have no need to classify bows beyond self or laminated as we are simply going for longest flight shot. Natural strings I have no problem with in this class.

  Traditional flight is more for the bowyers to evaluate their bows. Taking arrows and strings out of the equation by standardizing arrows and allowing for synthetic strings gives a more pure look at the bow.

  Ian, I am in favor of the war bow community writing their own rules as they have allready and our community accepting them as written. Same with  english long bows and turkish bows.

     Just something of interest to note. The most successful bows even in regular flight have not been the super stream lined fast flight bows but the more traditional looking bows. The skeletip bow would be an exception to this. I feel we have not mastered  getting the arrows out of the bow cleanly and it is cutting our distances. Last year I set a record with a bow shooting under 230 fps with a light arrow. My 270 fps flight bow shot about 10 yards less on its best shot. Dan Perry shot a 50# laminated elb just about the same distance as the other record bows in the simple composite class.

[Jules]

I would like to go back to the goals we are trying to reach and extrapolate the needed divisions and rules from there. Taking into account what already has been said my suggestion would be this:

Regular flight division - The purest of the three divisions. What will be the furthest distance with any design made out of natural materials (including the string and arrows).
Goal: Distance & full natural
Bow classes: Defined by material - Selfbow, simple composite (wood & bamboo layers), complex composite (any natural layer)
Arrow specs: Minimum length specified. Weight not specified (anything goes). All natural materials. Any design.
String specs: Natural only
Record status: Global

Traditional flight division - A test of history. How do (historical) bow designs compare to one another. To compare this the arrow specifications will be standarized (similar to but replacing the previously used Broadhead arrow).
Goal: Comparing the prominent designs of the past.
Bow classes: Defined per design (Badger gave an nice example of possible classes, I personally would like to see a small list rather then a long one).
Arrows spec: Minimum length defined. Weight standarized (grains per pound). Design standarized (with allowed material, to be defined).
String spec: Synthetic
Record status: Global

Introductory flight division - A stepping stone to flight archery. Easiest to enter.
Goal: Getting people interested and enthousiastic about flight archery.
Bow classes: To keep it simple I'd say the same as regular flight division but either is possible.
Arrow spec: Minimum length defined. Weight not specified (anything goes). Plastic nocks allowed. Any design.
String spec: Anything goes.
Record status: Local (national)

All divisions have a common ruleset (currently weight seperation being the only one, could be more):
Weight: up to 35#   36-50#  51-70#   UNL# (70#>)


This would cover the three main goals, distance, comparing bow designs and rejuvenating (or starting) flight archery. Of course more details need to be filled in here (such as arrow rest specifications, release method, allowed drawlength compared to arrow length (overdraw), measuring of the bow weight etc). Oddbal would be the 'warbow' class as this would be, in my opinion, any regular design over a certain poundage (and thus falling under it's respective bow class rather then being a seperate class).

[Marc St Louis]

A simple composite should read 2 natural layers, this would include sinew, rawhide and horn and allow sinew backed bows and sinew backed horn bows into the category.

If you keep the rules pretty well much the same as what FITA has already then what would be the point of creating another flight shooting organization?

[Badger]

  Thats my thinking Mark. Mike Bitts has started another dedicated forum to run this orgainzation from. Once we get some basic rules layed out I think we are going to vote on the items of contention. I don't think we have a voting committee firmly established yet.

[Badger]

  One thing we haven't discussed yet is that if we go ahead with the traditional classes as planned I suggested 8grains per pound arrow weight.
This could go anywhere from say 7 grains to 11 grains. 11 grains would allow for a shorter flight field, 7 grains would give more impressive distances which might be more motivating. A 7 grain per pound field might have to go out to 300 yards while an 11 grain per pound field could be maybe 230 yards long.

[Marc St Louis]

Getting people interested and participating should be the primary goal and you won't get that if you place too many restriction.  The option of shooting another round with the proper equipment should be allowed.  That way if someone happens to have a phenomenal shoot with say the wrong string type then they can switch their string to conform with accepted rules and try again for an acknowledged  distance that can be submitted for a world record.

[Badger]

       Thats a good sugestion Mark.

[redhawk55]

I found Jules post very thinkable, easy to understand. The rules defined by our starting point.

"f you keep the rules pretty well much the same as what FITA has already then what would be the point of creating another flight shooting organization?"
Marc, the main problem seems to be the question: when and why is a record a record?

"Getting people interested and participating should be the primary goal and you won't get that if you place too many restriction.  The option of shooting another round with the proper equipment should be allowed.  That way if someone happens to have a phenomenal shoot with say the wrong string type then they can switch their string to conform with accepted rules and try again for an acknowledged  distance that can be submitted for a world record."
And what could we do for to incite more people to primitive flightarchery.

I still need more pics and videos for the site!!!!

I would like to add well known flight- archers and flight- bowyers to the history part of the site: whom should I dedinitely mention?

Michael