Wednesday, 13 August 2025

Harry Drake and Flight Archery

 I bought the book, Harry Drake and Flight Archery by Kay Koppeldrayer on E-bay, it had to be shipped over from the US.
If it is your area of interest, I thoroughly recommend it.
Flight is maybe a bit niche, and my particular interest within that niche is wooden bow, wooden arrow.
The book pulls together a wealth of biography and information not easily accessible elsewhere. 
It's re-kindled my interest in flight and given areas for further work and experimentation.
The point of this post is to lay out those topics before I forget them.
I think I have a good candidate for a bow (my Osage flight bow) I also have ideas for further bow developments, some based on my previous bows. The main area that needs development is the arrows.
1. Short arrows for use with short draw bows or bows with overdraws. I need to make many more arrows.
2. Compressed wood for arrow shafts? Surface finish? velum vanes?
3. Release aid, flipper or mechanical.
5. Brush rest.
6. Yew bow heat treated belly, with very solid substantial riser approx equal length to the limbs. Shoot through design.
Maybe with takedown style limbs (Yew limb reinforced with thread binding at root to allow fixing to (adjustable?) riser. Forward mounted grip High poundage to brace.
Aim for 60-70# @ 23" using 20-21" arrows?
Refer to H bow (~ 36" long) for comparison.