Shuttlecock
(Redirected from Birdie)
Categories: Badminton | Shuttlecock | Racquet sports | Team sports
A shuttlecock is a high-drag projectile used in the sport of badminton. It has an open conical shape, with a rounded head at the apex of the cone traditionally made of cork and a skirt traditionally of sixteen overlapping goose feathers.
For most casual players, the cork-and-feather construction has been replaced by the use of a plastic (usually nylon) or rubber head and a plastic (usually nylon) skirt. The feather shuttlecock is still used by serious players and for competitions. The feathered variety is more expensive and far more likely to break during a match, and also has to be hit about three times as hard.
The shuttlecock is also called a "birdie", "bird", "cock" or "shuttle". The "shuttle" part of the name was probably derived from its back-and-forth motion during the game, resembling the shuttle of a loom, and the "cock" from the feathers of the traditional shuttlecock, referring to a bird's crest.
The shuttlecock's shape makes it extremely aerodynamically stable. Regardless of initial orientation, it will turn to fly head first, and remain in the head-first orientation. The feathers provide a lot of drag (less so in a plastic construction). It is this consistent high-drag behavior that makes badminton distinctive.
The shuttlecock's aerodynamic behavior was consciously replicated in the design of the spacecraft SpaceShipOne. Its "feathered" flight mode is a very stable high-drag configuration, used to make the flight insensitive to orientation during atmospheric reentry.
Shuttlecock is also used as the English name of the sport Jianzi, which is also played with a shuttlecock.
External links
Shuttlecock Federation of Europe
International Shuttlecock Federation
Hungarian Shuttlecock Federation
Hong Kong Shuttlecock Association
Chinese Shuttlecock Association
French Shuttlecock Association
Vietnamese Shuttlecock Association
Finnish Shuttlecock Association
Slovakian Shuttlecock Association
Taiwanese Shuttlecock Associationde:Shuttlecock fi:Sulkapallo