Fletching

Fletching consists of natural feathers or plastic vanes attached to the rear of an arrow. Its purpose is to stabilize the arrow after it leaves the bow.

For indoor shooting, larger fletchings are usually chosen because the arrow must stabilize quickly over short distances. Outdoors, wind resistance becomes more important, so smaller fletchings are generally preferred.

Fully assembled arrows without feathers or vanes are called bare shafts. These are used for tuning tests in order to analyze the arrow’s flight behavior without the correcting effect of the fletching.