Stickbow Target Archery Forums

This weekend, I shot in a FITA tournament where barebow shot 60, 50, 40, and 30 meters.

For the long distances, the wind was blowing directly at us about 15 mph; and I shot consistently high. I thought it would be the opposite -- I thought shooting into the wind would make my arrows go low. Some archers at the shoot told me shooting into the wind, and shooting with the wind at your back, do the same thing -- they give the arrow lift, and make it fly high. Others archers disagreed.

What has been your experience?

When I shoot into a strong head-wind my arrows go lower than they do with little or no wind. Conversly, when I shoot with a strong tail-wind the arrows go higher than they do with little or no wind. Maybe this is not due to the wind but to my lousy shooting. - John

That's what I was wondering about -- I figured those high arrows could be due to the kind of day I was having, or to mis-measured target distances, or to the wind.

I have never thought of arrows as having 'lift' -- that is, I associate 'lift' with some kind of wing where the path over the top of the 'wing' surface is longer than the path over the bottom of the 'wing' surface -- it isn't apparent to me that arrows work that way.

So, at the shoot, I consulted with archers shooting Olympic bow -- they use sights and draw checks, so I figured if they are shooting high, chances are better it is not 'them' -- it might be the wind. And some of them said they had to adjust their sights because they were shooting abnormally high -- others made no adjustments.

I shot in a Clout tournament once (185yrds) with an extreme head wind which was preceding a thunderstorm. I couldn't make the distance with my 50lb longbow and wood arrows. I was consistently 10-20yrds short no matter what elevation I used. But when the wind died down just prior to the rain coming, I had no trouble dropping my arrows in the target area.

Well, it sure isn't conclusive, whatever the answer is.

I was shooting flat-flying ACCs with Kurly Vanes at 60 meters, just beyond my point-on distance
I suspect that my 'angle of attack' was minimal, that the arrow spent more time going up than coming down, that it was sheltered from the headwind a bit as it came into the target butt, and thus was pushed up a bit more than it was pushed down, and was not pushed back much at all.

I suspect that, because Jack was going for distance, his angle of attach was extreme (maybe between 30 and 45 degrees?), and that because of this extreme angle, the arrows might have been pushed BACKWARDS as strongly as they were pushed up or down.

John, I don't know how far and with what you are shooting. According to my theory, you must be shooting well past your point-on distance with an arrow that arcs quite a bit. Am I right?

"you must be shooting well past your point-on distance with an arrow that arcs quite a bit"n
My statement was based on "me" shooting the mid-range and long-range FITA distances (50M, 70M and 90M) using a full-blown FITA bow and ACE-470 arrows with 120gr. points. At 90M the apex of the arrow is the vacinity of 15'-20'. There isn't any noticable effects from head/tail winds at 30M (in fact side-winds don't have to much effect at 30M either......
ot like those other distances). I did qualify my previous statement by saying it could be caused by my lousy shooting (or maybe the strong head-wind is blowing my body backwards, and conversely the strong tail-wind is blowing my body forward) at any rate, that's my story and I'm sticking to it - John

So I guess possible conclusions I can draw are:
I was shooting high that dayn orn the distances were measured incorrectlyn orn there are too many variables (wind speed, distance, angle of attack, arrow diameter, FOC, etc) to draw a general conclusion; I need to simply make adjustments at the time of the shoot

Arc, Those are good questions and one which I've had the opportunity to cuss and discuss before. I'm got a pretty good background in aerodynamics and the short answer if an arrow can create "lift" is no......To do so it has to have an angle of attack and opposing stabilizing surfaces to hold that angle of attack. They don't..They act like a windvane and stabilize into the relative wind.

If disturbed by outside forces, they can create "lift" for a spilt second and that lift can be up, down, left, or right...This is why poorly tuned arrows will go somewhere other then where they are pointed. But that "lift" is only momentary as the arrow will quickly stabilize into the relative wind.

That "quickly stabilize" part is a biggy. Arrows get distrubed by poor tuning, poor releases, and wind shears/gusts, leaves, twigs, and small children on the way to the target. The quicker it stabilizes, the less any one of these will effect it. If one arrow is more stable then another with all else equal, it might still miss, it just won't miss as far.

How quick they stabilize depends on how much drag is behind the center of gravity compared to in front of it. I've played with FOC's from -5% to over 25%. the farther forward the FOC is, the more stable the arrow is, the quicker it will stabilize if disturbed, the flatter it will shoot, and the less it will be effected by cross winds and gusts.

As for the shooting high problem....Shooting a recurve you've got about 26 square inches of "parachute" on each limb. I'd bet the wind velocity is a bit higher on your top limb then at your feet. Think that will push the bow up a bit??.....O.L.