Wind drift of carbon fibre composite arrows with or without an aluminium inner tube

The majority of the arrows used on the archery target range are either simple carbon fibre composite tubes, or carbon fibre composite tubes with an inner tube of high strength aluminium. The addition of the aluminium component markedly increases the arrow’s mass and reduces the arrow’s lateral drift in wind. This paper shows that the optimal wall thickness of the aluminium layer to both minimise wind drift and to retain the characteristics of a predominantly carbon fibre arrow shaft is approximately 0.008 inch, which is comparable to commonly available high-performance arrow shafts. The paper also provides a useful metric for comparing the expected wind drifts of different arrows.