Fletching orientation
 

Guys and gals - did any of you see the show Western Exreme on the Outdoor channel where Jim Burnworth was explaining the fletching orientation on his arrows? From what I understand, he uses the 2" Blazer vanes in the std 120* pattern but vane #2 is placed 1" ahead of vane #1 and vane #3 is placed 1" ahead of vane #2. (I believe he used 1" as the forward distance.) It was hard to hear him with the grandkids zooming around the house.
Now this does slightly change your FOC%. But it also give the arrow a (vanes) a longer profile. Apparently this improves stabilization and better accurac.
I am wondering if anyone else has tried this. If so, what are your conclusions?

I seen it but I thought he said 1/4 to 1/2 in. with a slightly helical.I dont believe it will change the FOC cause I believe that it goes by weight of vanes. As for trying it havent yet but am giving it some thought.
By offseting them slightly you making a 2 in vane or blazer seem like a 3 in vane cause it spins it catching the air off the leading vane and making it spin quicker than having all 3 vane equal. also allowing less drag on other 2 vanes cause the air is being directed to the next vane beside it. Just a thought not saying that how it works. Maybe this afternoon will make a few old 55/75 goldtips with 4 in offset like 3/8" with a left heical and shoot them tomorrow night and see what i came up with for accurcy.

Very interesting concept.....please let us know if your trials make a differance.

Ive seen that done before . It is not going to help you any. And it mat not hurt it either.
What i'm saying is there was concluded that there was not signifacate advantage.
I'll stick with the traditional way

My thoughts on it are that you still only have the same amount of surface area for the air to come in contact with.

Well did them up the other night and shot them yesterday. Can say after about 30 shots with both type of fletching. Didnt really see any difference between the two cept at 30-40 yds the off set vanes group started to group slightly tighter than other vanes. Want to do more testing before come up with verdict.

the aerodynamics of that setup will only create unwanted drag and cancels out the purpose of using short vanes in the first place.
the whole purpose for using short vanes is to eliminate as much drag as possible.
i did quite a bit of research a while back with blazer vanes when they first came out.
the best placement to place the fletching as far aft as you can. if a release is used you can put them nearly on the end if you shoot traditional then you need a little more room for your fingers.

everything is debatable though.

Exactly, fletching that way isn't going to create any more or less drag than fletching the regular way and it isn't going to steer any better or worse. It will lessen the FOC very slightly but it will be negligible.

Each vane is a specific size and each vane creates a specific amount of drag.

The only thing I can see that this might be doing is causing the vanes to the rear of the lead vane to be in slightly more turbulent air than the leading vane which would be detrimental to accuracy.

It's just the latest "thing" that some "pro" can say "I thought of that". Whoopty doo. I've seen different "pro's" trying to pass this fletching style off as the next best thing for a number of years now and it still hasn't caught on.

The purpose any vane is to create drag. The purpose of the short vane isn't to eliminate drag but rather to create as much drag as a standard 4" vane and to increase FOC slightly. Creating the drag is accomplished in two ways. #1 is that they are stiffer than a standard 4" vane so they are more resistant to deformation when traveling through the air at speed. #2 is that they are taller than a standard 4" vane so the tips of the vanes are in less turbulent air surrounding the shaft. The less turbulent the air the better fletching works. If it were beneficial to eliminate drag then we would all b shooting bare shafts.

Whatever works for him.

Arrows have had fletchings at the end for a long time. Missiles, torpedoes, and rockets are the same way. Would believe there is a good reason for it. Might have something to do with better stabilization at the rear where its needed.

Messed around with them some this am after doing a 3-D shoot. A couple guys seen them in my case and wanted to try them. Between the 3 of us shooting them at various distances. Going to say not much of a difference in how they flew. The groups were same or slightly larger than other arrow groups.