In some countries, like mine, they use plastic for some grades of players and when you get a higher level you play with feathers. Also not all feathers are approved. Only the brands and models that the badminton organization tested and approved to be used for tournaments. So brands as Aeroplane, YangYang, Sealion,... are totally unknown, not available on the market and not used on tournaments. Not that they aren't good but just not approved by the comity.
And in Canada, at least where I play, you can usually find about 4-5 lightly used abandoned feather shuttles lying around per hour that you can collect. After I started collecting them, I saved an approximate 20 per every 2 weeks.
I have used both feather and plastic (plastic mainly in dry Calgary Canada, and feather recently in Hong Kong where it is humid and cheap) plastic is what i used for a long time, and i have used feather quite a bit while visiting HK, and feather feels so much better with a lot more life. But i will have to settle with plastics again since it is the standard in Canada.
Plastic is such a different game. Of course in Highschool, it was always about plastic as it was pretty much the only shuttles we could afford. But I remember having my first experience in hitting with feather, it was totally different however if you feel that having control, balance, and crisp shots are important to you, feather is definitely the way to go. I would choose cheap feather over plastics any day now.
In India, we have Aerosensa 2, which has a superb flight and comes to about 1.4 USD or 100 INR. It doesnt last very long if not TLCed during play. One thing I have noticed is that with better players, the shuttles tend to last longer than outright amateurs. Lastly, I train my kids, age 3 & 5 with Nylons mostly...recommend the Yonex 350 for this.
I would recommend Victor Gold for training. It is real good quality and value. the price also about $15. it is no problem for play one to two game.
I mainly use plastic because I'm not a part of a club at the moment - just doing drop in sessions. God almighty do I have to whack the **** out the medium speed Mavis 300s to get them to travel a good distance. I think my strings are too tight for me to play plastic effectively at the moment, my shots aren't as good as they should be. I've just ordered a tube of Victor Gold and fast speed Mavis 300s for playing in future. Out of curiosity, do feathers have a slower or faster rate of descent than plastic?
See if possible make a group and use feather ( cheaper Rsl ones ) . Won't be much costly if you steam them and use with little care . Plastic doesn't slow as good as feather and will do damage to both your racket and arm .
I just purchased some Victor Golds (and they don't look great to be honest, despite sterling reviews, they don't appear to be amazing quality). So what I'm getting is, feathers have a higher initial travel speed, but lose that travel speed faster? Well, I bought some Mavis 300 Fasts too. So tonight should be fun.
Feathers somehow are easier to hit with finger power, whereas plastic require more shoulder input. If you still have to play plastic, then give Mavis 2000 a try... plays closest to feather out of all plastics.
Which are they Victor Gold Champion or Victor Gold No.1 ??? . Looks can be deceiving as RSL are pretty much most prettiest shuttles out there . Even the cheapest ones . While yonex does not look as much pretty shape wise .
Don't use AS 2 . They are out right crap compared to RSL No. 3 and 4 and Aerosensa 10 available in the same price range a snapdeal.com
No they are not . I see people from USA/Canada/Europe crying over feather being costly and all . In India which is also a badminton power house , a single shuttle's money can feed a whole family for 3-4 days . Imagine how small kids whose monthly pocket money is less than the cost of single shuttle can afford . We still some how play using wasted shuttle most BCers wont even touch.
Unfortunately only available in UK at the moment, but people who have tried Bird2 say they're better...
Well, I've had a short and easy 1h session with Bird2 yesterday, occasionally switching to feather and Mavis 350 (blue). Way too short time to jump to any conclusiuons but there're some thoughts already. Actually it was the first time ever when I made a direct comparison between feather and plastic (fact that surprised me by itself ) and that was quite an interesting experience. I was kinda pleased that on the simple high clears all of them very pretty close - at least in terms of landing spot. It's just that one has to provide a bit more effort to clear with Mavis. But when it comes to attacking clears and netplay I did notice that Bird2 is much closer to feather than Mavis 350. Few netshots were a pure joy when the shuttle was just crawling over the cord. It also has quite a different hit sound and initial feeling and I assume it's mostly due to stiffness. The feeling is still more that of a plastic though. Giving it a second thought - in part it could be actually the consistency of plastic. Feather shuttle feels more "alive" - there's always a fair bit of uncertainty in where and how will it travel. Somehow while playing with Bird2 I was far more accurate compare to other two options. Even though the racket I was using is at quite a low tension at the moment. That fact requires further investigation. And as others people have described already - from time to time it does make the opponent think it's going out while landing vertically just in front of baseline. I've been tricked with it myself a couple of times as well. In addition I felt I was reaching a few drop-shots I'd have never been able to reach with Mavis. Need more practice against a stronger opponent to see if that was just happening in my head or not. That's probably more of "Bird2 thread"-related post but I feel I need more time to get the thoughts together on the matter. So far I'd go for Bird2 instead of a Mavis for general practice and would probably leave Mavis for social games. At least switching to feather from Bird2 is less noticeable. And the fact that at the end of the day I couldn't tell the difference between the new shuttle and the one being used for almost an hour is very appealing indeed.
