Dart Flights    

A guide from Darts-addiction.com to help you choose the best dart flights for your darts.

Choosing dart flights is a very important factor in your dart set-up and care should be taken in choosing the correct shape and texture for your darts and throwing style.

Standard flights tend to guide the darts more efficiently because they have a larger surface area. They tend to be more forgiving of darts thrown at an angle to the board because the larger surface area catches the air and straightens them up.

    

    

          Premier League          Dennis Priestly             Target Flights

This is when it may be better to choose a different size and/or shape of flight. Smaller flights tend to cut through the air quicker too which I feel enhances the effect of using shorter stems. I have found though, that your throw needs to be very controlled and balanced for this set-up to be effective.

    

         Ruthless-Kite        Phil Taylor Unicorn-Slim       Winmau - Pear

Another factor with flights that I have noticed is that the smoother the texture of flight you use, the less drag effect they have so they will slice more quickly through the air.

    

        Tuxedo Ruthless        Winmau Arrowhead        Harrows Combat

Also very important when choosing flights is the price and availability factors. It is worth remembering that you need to be able to readily buy the same design of flights easily from any point of purchase. I also think that because flights get damaged so easily, it makes sense to find some that you like that aren’t too expensive.

    

     Fabric Jack & Queen       Embossed Dimplex        Embossed Ribtex
So what does all this mean? If your darts tend to hit the board at an angle and you wish to correct this, or you want your darts to "lob" then try using bigger flights and longer stems. If you have no trouble with this and you want your darts to have a flatter trajectory to the board then use flights with a smaller surface area and shorter stems.

    

  Harrows Fantail Graflite   L-Flights High Durability     Feather Flights

I definitely recommend trying all shapes of flight at least once and also various lengths of stems so that you can determine what’s best for you. You may even decide on flights with a smaller surface area and long or medium stems. This is perfectly alright if you are happy with how your darts flight.

It seems that there is always an exception to every rule. I know a very good dart player who plays in the local Whyalla Darts League by the name of Jim Warren. Now when you see his darts fly through the air you will think that he has the wrong flights or stems or even darts because they wobble all over the place before hitting their target.

The thing is though, that they do hit their target over and over and over again. The only thing that bothers Jim, if anything, is that people suggest that he should change his darts set-up when he is so good with his darts the way they are!

The top six dart flights on this page are all the smooth standard shape of flights but with different print designs. The six dart flights below the standard flights are all different shapes but are all smooth. All of the flights below them have varying textures.

The textures shown are fabric, Embossed Dimplex, Embossed Ribtex, Graflites (which is a fusion of micro fibre technology and high intensity thermo forming production techniques which results in a flight of exceptional strength, with a rigid 90 degree wing angle), Target 'L' Flights (which are smooth but made of extra tough material and have slots for collars which grip your nylon stems) and who could forget the old hand-made feathered flights with real feathers?

© Chris Elsby November 2008 All Rights Reserved.

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