Although I wasn’t working in my lab late the other night (in fact I was drinking coffee sitting in front of the TV), my eyes nonetheless beheld an eerie sight. Well, maybe not eerie, but at least unusual. Phil Taylor was playing darts not very well.
This phenomenon had started a couple of days before when he won only one leg in his final group match in the Grand Slam of Darts, but as that was a “dead rubber” it was hard to know how much significance to place on it. But now it was continuing into his last 16 match against Colin Lloyd. However it didn’t last long. From 4-3 down, Phil produced a “Power surge” to win seven legs in a row and hence the match 10-4.
Why this was of particular interest to me was because Phil was playing the tournament with a new flight design which he came up with entirely by himself and has (aerodynamics jargon alert!) the leading edge sweepback found on the Sigma Pro flights of my design but a more curved trailing edge and significantly less span.
Now from a flight dynamics point of view I would have considered Phil’s new flights rather too small to give the ideal amount of lift. For a player of his ability, this may well not cause any problems when he is playing well and releasing smoothly, but not doing so could potentially lead to some comparatively wayward darts. That said, they do have other advantages. They have a low moment of inertia, which helps to offset lower stability, and their reduced lift means that any dart asymmetries have less aerodynamic effect. Smaller flights also obviously offer less obstruction to both following darts and the line of sight to the target. More specifically, with Phil’s particular throwing style, his new flights allow him to pull the dart further back without catching his face and, by my reckoning, will cause his darts to land slightly below horizontal on average, something he was used to with his old “Purist” set-up.
Now these advantages could be important and Phil had said that he was playing better than ever with these flights – at least in practice. And practice results seemed to translate to tournament results when he won his first two GSOD group matches without losing a leg. Then there was that uncharacteristic final group match. So you can be sure I was paying especial attention to his further progress in the tournament.
And now that his ultimate comfortable victory is in the darting record book, I thought it worth telling you how this result has affected my thinking on dart design.
The key point here is that Phil’s flights are actually fairly similar to some of the prototype Sigma flights from the 1980s. Now it’s nice when experiment and theory agree, but I designed those for very good players using darts with a very low moment of inertia – certainly lower than Phil’s Phase 5s. Without him proving otherwise, I would have considered them too small for more general use, even for professionals.
So, Phil playing well with his new flights makes me think that maybe he has moved the darting goalposts as to what constitutes “very good” and that I should think about resurrecting those early designs – how does Sigma “Super Pros” sound?
Mind you, although it doesn’t look likely, if things should happen to go not quite so well for him from here, I suppose I’d have to put those goalposts back were they were and those designs back in the drawer with other historical curiosities like carbon fibre SlikStiks (mention of which some blogs ago certainly provoked Freddie’s interest!). I suppose that would save me having to worry about whether to program a new “Super Pro” standard category into uniLab, but I must admit I would be disappointed – I wouldn’t be a scientist if I didn’t like to see progress!
Finally, talking of Super Pros, I did have another vested interest in the results from the GSOD. Barney reached the semis having started playing - again entirely of his own volition - with Sigma Pro shafts and flights. Although, as I tell Joe in the Q&As that follow, for most people this set-up with Barney’s barrels wouldn’t necessarily be seen as the best on purely aerodynamic grounds, it could be argued that it has some of the same “Super Pro” advantages as Phil’s new set-up. Whatever, let’s hope it helps him to show some more signs of a return to form!
Q&As
Andy and Joe and Unilab
Last time Andy posted such a good selection of comments and questions about uniLab that I answered him with a post which immediately followed his own. I won’t reiterate all that here, but I will again make the important point that it is possible to get a higher match percentage using Optimiser than can be obtained with Selector. This is due to the fact that Selector only finds the optimum dart set-up as sold whereas Optimiser can select from any Unicorn shaft and flights to go with a chosen barrel. Joe also made similar points to Andy about including Sigmas in uniLab and being able to use it for any configuration, so if I may I’ll refer him to that same post of mine. The bottom line is “Thanks for the suggestion and we will certainly think about it”!
Another of Joe’s questions concerned the uniLab Optimiser results for his 21gm Sigma 970s. In fact, Joe, these would be virtually the same as those you obtained for 23gm Andy Hamiltons because they are very similar to Sigmas which, as I’ve explained before, are specifically designed to retain the same aerodynamic characteristics across their weight range. Incidentally, from the 98.7% optimisation you obtained, I would anticipate that your input parameters are something like “Arm, Pro, Forward, Fast and Spin”, which would certainly not suit the Sigma One set-up (you’re too good!) and even result in that of the Sigma Pro giving a slightly sub-optimal score (in the 97s).
And now for Joe’s final question which, as I mention above, is particularly on-topic for this blog – what would be the optimisation percentage for Barney’s new set-up? Well, if we take the liberty of putting his standard as just “Pro”, it wouldn’t be all that high (in the 96s), which isn’t surprising because the Sigma Pro set-up was designed specifically to go with low-inertia Sigmas, not with higher inertia barrels like Barney’s. To obtain a better score, a compensatory lighter shaft would be indicated. But this is my point in this blog; “Super Pros” with very smooth throws like Phil and Barney may beneficially be able to use lower stability set-ups than even “average” Pros. But, as the advantages are mostly non-aerodynamic and such players have the time and resources to experiment and assess the pros and cons for themselves, I’m still not sure about the merits of a “Super Pro” setting in uniLab!
Kevin and the Optimum Shaft and Flights
I may have got the wrong end of the stick here, Kevin, but it sounds like the Optimiser function in uniLab does what you want. If I’ve missed your real point, let me know!
Michael and Dotty and Custom and Historic Darts, etc
It’s always great to receive comments and have interest shown concerning Unicorn products, folks, but I’m afraid I’m not really the right person to answer general questions about their range – I’m more concerned with the science behind it! In this context the “contact us” facility on the website can be useful and I understand Dotty has already been in direct correspondence with Unicorn over some of her questions. I will, however, answer some of your points here as I think they are of wider interest. Firstly, Unicorn don’t do custom darts because they are more geared up for high-volume production and couldn’t offer a cost-competitive service. Second, the idea of bringing back iconic designs from the past such as the “001” and “002” from 1975 is a good one and is being considered. Incidentally, those particular darts were 72% tungsten and their design is echoed in some current Unicorn darts such as the 80% tungsten Peter Manley Maestro. Although that is admittedly only available in weights up to 26gms, Unicorn do market much heavier darts, notably in the T80 and Striker series where there’s even one of 40gms. “Bombs” are available too. Hope that helps!