Founding a new worldwide Primitive flightbow federation?

[Badger]

    Michael, good to see you back in action! I am not very good on computers so may not be useful as an administrator. But I plan to help in every way I can. I would suggest the first step would be to recrcruit a small group that could put some rules together, maybe we can vote on the various issues or vote to accept sets of rules as written. If we can get 10 or 12 guys together we should able to hash something out in a couple of weeks and then maybe spend a month refining it.

[Badger]

  I am looking forward to getting this thing going, how good of a job we do in setting it up will have a large impact on how successful it is down the line. I plan to write a "pitch" promoting my own philosophy on where we should take this but will also look forward to hearing others opinions and recognizing that compromise and a lot of feed back will get us into the right place.

[redhawk55]

Just building the HISTORY-site.
Need to know when the first primitive flightbow competions in the US and the UK took place?
Michael

[Badger]

  Michael, do you mean when it was first recognised as primitive and specific rules were applied to primitive vs modern material bows. In the early days of flight I believe it was all primitive. Those were the glory days for the primitive bowyers in my eyes. They might not be a bad model to look at. As far as I know Ike our retired chairman and Allen Case might be the best sources on history. If Allen doesn't have the info I will call Ike.

[redhawk55]

Yes, I mean all aspects.

The first flight-championship of the NAA, the first championship with a declared Primitive- class.
Are there any recordings about those "glory days" for the primitive bowyers, about tournaments and records shot with primitive gear.
I personally would like to know much more about those times, I think we could learn a lot of these guys.
Michael

[Badger]

   I am seeing the need here for a historian position. It would add a very important aspect to this group. We would need a good writer and someone who could conduct a good interview. He would need all of our help in finding contacts to interview. Time is running out here. Most of the old timers have passed on but I thiknk a few remain that could give us some valuable insights into the past.

[avcase]

The modern day primitive Flight rules were drafted in the 1980's by Dan Perry and have undergone a several clarifications since.  I feel that Dan did an excellent job keeping the rules as simple and consistent as possible and I would suggest using these rules rather than invent something new from scratch. Of course, the organizer of the flight shoot has a lot of discretion. For example, the organizer may choose not to require natural string material, or may not have access to calibrated scales or measuring devices. I wouldn't let those details stand in the way of organizing a flight shoot as long as it is reported when the results are published. The organizers would also have to accept the fact that distances will have an unofficial status if all the standards are not met, but that wouldn't have to stand in the way of having a successful and fun shoot.  We are working on a proposal to incorporate these rules into The World Archery organization as well, so the event organizers would have the option to hold record status primitive events world wide.

The basic categories are as follows:

Self bow
    35 lb or under (currently youth only), 50 lb or under, Unlimited

Simple Composite (Bows backed with a single lamination)
    50-lb or under, Unlimited

Complex Composite - Bows made with any combination of natural materials
    50-lb or under, Unlimited

Turkish - Horn, wood, sinew composite shot with a sipur overdraw
    No weight class limits

For all the detail, see: http://www.teamusa.org/USA-Archery/Events/Rules

[Badger]

  Allen, those are good suggestions, I would like to see a 70# class added to that as well as the 35# class available to the other classes. I would hope to see that the rules are tight enough to have credability even though they would not be recognized as the official world body.

   In place of broadhead I would also like to see a taget bow division maybe based on about 7 or 8 grains per pound. I think this could become a popular class.

  Because we are only dealing with primitive I believe we could be more liberal with classes.

[Badger]

  As Allen suggested I would be in favor of using the same classes as the existing flight shooting organization but with the addition of a 35 and 70# weight class in all divisions.

 The only variance to the rules I would suggest are allowing modern strings, feather rests, Glued or tied on string bridges, 21" minimum arrow and 3" arrow shelf.

[DC]

What is a feather rest?
Thanks

[Badger]

  Feathers that are glued side by side with the slant of the quills going in the direction of the arrow, makes for a nice release. Also easy to make and natural.

[DC]

Do you just use short lengths of feather? Kind of like a fur arrow rest. Trimmed short?

[Badger]

     I cut them down to about 1/4" maybe a tad higher.

[Jules]

Hey there,

So far I'd think Avcase's (allen?) classes would be most the most basic, and therefore the most simple,  to get (new) people interested in flight shooting.

You'd might even consider putting 'Asian bows' under complex composite somehow by allowing certain models in 'complex composite' that aren't allowed in 'simple composite' or allowing the more uncommon materials as horn and sinew in complex only. This way you can expand the simple composite class by allowing multiple layers. Thus only leaving three classes.

These classes being:
- Self bow
- Simple composite - Bows with multiple layers of wood or bamboo (aka the more European models). No overdraw allowed.
- Complex composite - Bows with multiple layers of wood, bamboo, sinew or horn (aka the more Asian bows). Overdraw allowed.

[Badger]

  I think one of the reasons I tend to favor more classes is that 10 years from now I wouldn't want to look back and see the need for an additional class, changing it would then affect existing records and become kind of a mess potentialy. I would favor making the simple composite to include any amount of laminations as long as it is all wood and making the complex composite to include any natural materials other than wood.

    At present we also have broadhead classes which to me represents traditional classes. In other words bows shooting in a manner that they were intended to shoot. I would divide it up into regular flight classes and traditional classes. Traditional classes might include english longbows, yumi bows, american long bows, war bows etc. The traditional classes might become very popular as no special arrows, arrow rests or design features would be neccessary. I believe if we go too simple and crunch too much together it will suffer in the long run. I also believe that creating opportunities to showcase various styles will encourage the proper development of each style.