Spitfire Taper (TM)

Why the Spitfire Taper (™) makes sense.

The taper of a fly rod is the change in diameter of the rod throughout its length. If the change in diameter is constant it’s called a straight line taper. Some rod designers change the taper in various sections along the rod’s length. Some think it’s a good idea to have a weak area that acts like a hinge. Some like the idea of having the taper bow out a little, forming a convex curve if plotted on graph paper. These so-called convex tapers have been around a long time and I have found that there is merit to them. When you think about it a straight line taper is really a convex taper if it was expressed in percentages rather than absolute measurement in thousandths of an inch. One thousandths of an inch is .33% of 300 thousandths (a typical butt diameter) and it's 1.4% of 70 thousandths (a typical tip diameter). So by keeping the diameter change in inches constant you actually are increasing the amount of change percentagewise as the rod diameter gets smaller towards the tip. This is why most modern carbon rods today end up being fast tip action rods and cast very well.

The Spitfire Taper does the same thing but at a faster rate. After doing a lot of testing with various taper designs I came up with a taper that is basically a modified convex taper that has a continuously increasing rate of change. It is in fact the first elliptical taper ever devised and published as such. This helps bamboo cast more like a graphite rod without hinges or other random changes of taper based on the whim of the rod maker. The rate of change increases exponentially as the rod diameter decreases, making the tip even faster than it would be if the it were a fixed rate taper. On paper it looks like the leading edge of the famous WWII fighter – the Spitfire’s elliptical wing, from which my elliptical taper derives its name. This taper design makes for a fast action (or tip action) rod and has a couple benefits that will help you cast better, farther and with less effort: 1 – it loads faster into the thicker section of the rod giving it more power and the ability to cast tighter loops. 2 – despite the powerful feel of the rod the tip remains light and sensitive, capable of protecting very fine leaders and tippets. If you prefer the slower more parabolic action of a traditional bamboo rod we can do that too. The Spitfire Taper is for those of us who enjoy the look and character of bamboo but want the best casting fly rod modern technology can add to this beautiful all natural material.

Again -- this taper design is not new. I am sure many custom rod builders have used a similar taper. I have just refined it to what I like and the elliptical curve just works very well in my opinion. Since I have not come across anyone else who has defined their convex taper as following an elliptical curve I have to assume that if theirs happens to look similar, it was not the designer's intent to make it elliptical -- it just happened to end up looking elliptical. My taper is a true elliptical curve and it is mathematically correct and intentionally done. It works very well, just like the Spitfire fighter plane worked very well in WWII. I'm a big fan of aviation and history, I'm a licensed private pilot, and Spitfire airplane is my favorite WWII fighter. And the name is cool so I decided to name my taper design the "Spitfire Taper." (The trade mark name is pending approval by the US Patent and Trademark Office.)