Every product MTC is offering are the result of my personal experience that evolved from competing, observing, questioning and testing. A few suggestions over the years have influenced the end design. But the current product offering concepts are mine alone. Some wind flag suppliers note that well known or successful shooters have helped with their designs, I was not so lucky, mostly because I would not accept the normal or existing direction, Recently there are several suppliers that have taken over the manufacture and sales of established products from well known and successful shooters. I hope they maintain the same quality and ideas as those that developed them. But at MTC I think evolution is a good thing.
Making wind flags and wind reading tools is easy, just copy one of the many now being offered. Making a better wind flag and wind reading tools is more difficult. Being satisfied with good enough is not the best solution for anyone that is attempting perfection. It isn’t about looks, style or colors, it’s about performance. What must MTC do to design better products for performance? It takes careful analysis of why things work and the reasons for their actions. There are many really simple elements if you look deeply into them. The design of a wind flag is a good example, let me attempt to explain.
If I could create the perfect environment where the wind is stable, moving at a consistent speed with no fluctuation, I would have the perfect condition for analyzing every impact the wind. In that chamber, I would place a long shaft (a long shaft would amplify the actions) that has the pivot exactly in the center of the shaft. Increasing the winds speed would have no impact because the force is equal everywhere over the entire surfaces. Now if I add a tail to one end of the shaft. For this test, weight must be added to the front to balance the assembly and make everything equal again. Now the entire assembly will turn the tail end toward the wind flow direction. This displays that the tail captured the wind’s energy better than anything else on the assembly. If the wind was to change direction, the tail end would attempt to follow the wind. There would be a minor hesitation (start-up energy) for the tail to respond to the wind’s new direction energy. Two things now happen, the tail is trying to catch up with the wind and some excessive speed is generated during this effort. The problem being, excessive speed will cause the tail to move past the wind flow. Now we have overswing or the windshield wiper effect. This is a real problem where the swirling wind is present. Anything on the front of a wind flag opposite the tail offers little other than some comfort to the shooter that displays something is happening. Propellers and Daisy wheels disrupt the wind flow to the tail and contribute to the twitching. Large Daisy wheels are heavy and act as flywheels attempting to maintain a stable position against the motion of the wind. Streamers are constantly being lifted by the wind and their weight is pulling them downward. Ideally only the tail should react to any wind direction. Perhaps this is a lot like picking fly specks out of pepper, but if .001 can win or lose a match, it’s important.
How is this problem corrected? Perfect balance is the ideal situation for response and accuracy. By redistributing the wind energy so it is not equally applied, positive and accurate direction motions will occur. Moving the pivot position toward the front of the shaft will enable the tail to be far more responsive to the wind than the front section. Placing the leading edge of the tail close to the pivot will encourage faster reactions. A shorter flag will swing less and overcome direction change more quickly. Perfect balance works best and no need for off-balancing or tipping. Size is only limited by the pivot’s ability to handle the weight. MTC uses precision miniature deep grove stainless steel caged ball bearings and stainless steel posts for pivots. They work well to handle most any reasonable flag weight. It’s really simple logic, it just requires using those lazy muscles in our head.
Vertical wind flags are easily designed to return to a neutral position. This is accomplished by placing the main shaft below the pivot or hanging. Weight and gravity will attempt to re-balance the flag. Perfect balance will result in sustained wagging unless some type of restraint is applied. A low energy magnet works well without adding unnecessary physical contact or friction. True direction arrow indicators on the tail fin eliminate any confusion. This device adds the information that a standard wind flag can’t display and we may have never knew existed.
Crosswind indicators require the main shaft to be close to equally balanced for best sensitivity. But requires some type of damping to stop the continuing wagging without adding resistance. Magnetic work better than anything else. There is no physical contact and a more positive appropriate reaction is realized. Weather, moisture, and dust have no harmful effects on them. The primary advantage of these devices is their ability to display actual wind force crossing the path of the bullet. They must react quickly and accurately as the wind is unstable and never maintains positions or energy for any length of time. Scales with numbers are a much better indicator of wind energy and movement. Dots or colors do not display a defined indication of the wind force. Scales with “Miles per Hour” are useless, the adjustments you must make will be the result of practice and experience. A specific number indicated on the scale will through practice immediately provide the correct adjustment required. Nothing further is needed. These devices supplement wind flags as the wind flag has no ability to display true wind speed or energy. Without knowing the actual energy of the wind, adjustments or compensating is a GUESS.
Magnetic dampening offers several advantages over other methods. The resistance is applied only at the neutral position and allow full unrestrained movement when the wind is active. This is different from the hydraulic type of dampeners which apply resistance always. Secondly, magnetics are unaffected by weather and are not impacted by rain or dust and do not wear out.
Wind reading tools should provide positive, rapid direction and intensity information without the searching, fluttering motions. If they do not, high-risk guessing is required and the tool fails to be an accurate or effective tool.