PowerBilt Air Force One Driver - "Nitrogen Powered"
 

There are lots of hair-brained ideas in every industry. Golf is no different. A question I find myself asking is "Why would anyone think that would work?"

I ran across one of those products at the recent San Francisco Bay Area Golf Show. It is the PowerBilt "Nitrogen Powered" Driver - the Air Force One.

The "Science" behind the product is that the driver head is loaded with nitrogen gas under pressure. That permits the driver to be constructed with a "thinner face". The thinner face compresses a little more on impact, allowing the ball to compress a little more against the face and result in a higher ball speed. Reinforcement for the thinner face comes from the nitrogen gas, not extra titanium. Higher ball speed = more distance.

The first question is "Is that legal?"

Answer: it is. The nitrogen reinforcement allowed the driver head to pass the USGA "COR" and "Characteristic Time" test sequence. The Air Force One is USGA legal.

The second question is "why would that work?"

The Air Force One driver is "speed rated". For players with slower to average swing speeds, the face thickness is 2.6 millimeters. For players with higher swing speeds - defined as over 105 MPH - the face thickness is 2.8 millimeters.

The concept of "trampoline effect" is widely misunderstood. The nomenclature suggests that the face of the driver compresses and then "shoots" the ball forward. Not so. "Impact" happens much faster than that. If the face of the driver compresses a little bit, that allows the ball to compress a little more as well. It is the additional compression of the ball that leads to extra distance. The ball is long gone before the trampoline springs back.

The idea behind the Air Force One is to allow a micro- millisecond more time for the ball to compress against the face of the driver.

The motivation behind the development of the Air Force One is that the USGA tests that limit the "rebound effect" are all aimed at players with relatively high swing speeds. 105 MPH is the "reference" number. Is the Air Force One a high performance driver for "the rest of us?"

We borrowed a few of the PowerBilt Air Force One drivers at the Bay Area Golf Show and tested them with our Achiever launch monitor. Heather did most of the work. At some points, we thought that we detected a slight increase in ball speed, but without our rose colored glasses, the testing was inconclusive. Then, we got tired.

That "cooled our jets". The whole idea of the Nitrogen Charged driver went on the back burner.

 

 Complex, Lengthy Development Process
 

We've learned quite a bit about driver heads over the years. Despite their uniform appearance, they are handmade objects. Whether the body is cast or forged it has to be welded together by hand. No two are exactly alike. Getting those weld lines perfect is difficult. It is common for driver heads to have tiny "pinhole" voids. Needless to say, that presents a problem if you try to fill the head with gas under pressure. You need a high quality driver head if you want to inject nitrogen under pressure.

The Air Force One heads are coated on the inside with a concoction that seals the head. Then, the valve that withstands the repeated shocks of striking a golf ball must be pretty sophisticated and very sturdy.

The term "technology" is bandied about in the golf industry. The Air Force One has actually confronted and conquered some issues that can fairly be called "technological challenges". The idea of pressurized heads has been around the industry for over ten years but it is only now that the manufacturing hurdles have been figured out.

 

 The "Ice Man" Cometh
 

We might have let the Air Force One sit on the back burner indefinitely if it weren't for the "Ice Man". He's been a regular Golf Lab customer for years - mostly taking care of himself but stopping in every couple of weeks to see "what's new" and catch up on ideas he might have missed.

Every year, the Ice Man and three friends make the trek up to the monster Demo Day at Haggin Oaks in Sacramento. This year they scheduled a round of golf after working the tee line.

If you haven't been to the Haggin Oaks Demo Day, it's worth going at least once - for the same reason you might want to be at Times Square on New Year's Eve. You won't believe the crowds. Vendors barricade themselves behind tables - handing out demo clubs in return for a driver's license. You get to take a few free whacks before the players in line behind you begin to push you along with snide comments. Then, you run for cover and get in line at the next booth.

But don't forget your driver's license. Each year, dozens are left behind.

The Ice Man and his buddies stopped at the PowerBilt booth. After a few whacks one of the group decided that he liked the Air Force One. That opinion was met with unrestrained derision from the rest of the group.

Nitrogen under pressure? You've got to be kidding!! You could hear the laughter all the way back to the lemonade stand. "Sophisticated" golfers could never go for such a gimmick.

If you're playing poker, there is time to call the bluff. The Powerbilt representative at Haggin gave the group a demo club to take out for their round.

That's the source of our biggest surprise of the season. In the course of the round, each of the players hit the Air Force One against their current driver - once to start - and then hole after hole.

The Ice Man reported that he hit the Air Force One twenty to thirty yards past his own driver. Even misses were better. Side by side comparison, hole after hole, the Air Force One was longer - not a little, a lot. This is a guy who is hard to impress and who has played at least two dozen other drivers in the last year. If I had heard the story from a player I don't know, I would have forgotten it immediately. From the Ice Man - I had to believe it was true.

You get a lot of hearsay reports about how one driver is longer than another. In our experience, that is a universal claim. Every single driver that has ever been invented has been touted by its designer as "longer and straighter". Hopeful, not likely.

This story might be just that - only a story - except for what happened after the players came off the course. Three of the four players in the Ice Man's group went out and BOUGHT an Air Force One the next week. The Ice Man - himself? He bought one and wanted us to know about it.

The foursome decided that they needed to "confess". The golf world is highly influenced by the opinions expressed on the various golf equipment forums. I've mentioned GEA, Bombsquad, Golf Opinions and Golfwrx in previous emails. The group decided that they were ethically bound to report their experience on Golf.wrx.com, their primary online "home". That decision was not taken lightly. Reporting a positive experience from the "Nitrogen Charged Driver" was expected to draw guffaws from the audience. Not too different from the practice tee. Who wants to look stupid and ignorant at the same time?

So the flipped a coin, nominated a "sacrificial lamb", and let him make the post. The result was predictable: disbelief.

That is a polite description.

Over the years, some of our best tips have come from customers. We're forever thankful to the customer who told us to check out Aerotech shafts five years ago. That turned out to be one of the products that we've built our business on. So how about this tip?

We figured we'd better take notice of the Air Force One.

 

 The Ice Man Cometh, Part Two
 

The next week the Ice Man brought his current "Gamer" - a Taylor Made Burner with an Enzo 50 gram shaft to hit against his new Air Force One which he had immediately reshafted with an Aldila Voodoo in stiff flex into the Golf Lab to see if we could confirm the eye-witness results with electronics.

Step one. What are the specifications we're testing? The Enzo tested at 240 cycles per minute (CPM) and the Voodoo tested to 261 CPM. The Enzo was 45", the Air Force One 45.5". If you're not up on your numbers that makes the Enzo a "soft regular" and the Voodoo a "soft X".

We started testing with the Achiever. The first set with the Burner produced an average ball speed of 146 MPH - not a big surprise for a player who is swinging at 106 MPH. The Ice Man is a very good player. Astute readers are going to question that "smash factor" - reminder - smash factor is the ball speed divided by the club head speed. Despite many reports about smash factors in the 1.5 range, we see very few at the Golf Lab that reflect that degree of swing efficiency. The Ice Man's results were normal for a player with an outside in swing path and inconsistent face angle at impact.

The first set with the Air Force One produced an average ball speed of 150. That started looking like what the legal community loves to call an "open and shut case".

But we couldn't leave well enough alone. The Air Force One shaft length was 45.5 inches and everyone knows that we hate drivers that are too long. This is especially true when a player has an "outside-in" swing path of 4* - we call that a "minus 2". Forget the ball speed, let's work on that cut move. Maximum distance never comes from a cut. If you want to transfer maximum energy from the club to the ball, you have to hit the ball "square".

The longer the driver, the more intense the centrifugal force and the more likely you're going to come from "outside in". If you're looking for a "perfect swing" benchmark, think 4* inside out with the clubface 2* open at impact. That's what gives you the nice soft draw that hits the ground and jumps.

We took the Voodoo to the back room for a little emergency surgery. Cut to the top of the shaft at 44.5" it ended up at 44.75" playing length (top of grip). That length reduction alone improved the outside in swing path to minus 2* from minus 4*. So far, so good. The bad news? We dropped 1 MPH of ball speed. Was that due to the club length or thinking about the swing? We'll never know.

The next move was to try the Balance-Certified Stabilizer and see if we could help the Ice Man control his swing path a little better. That worked like a charm. First the light weight (29 grams) then the heavy weight (59 grams). The winner was the heavy. Within fifty swings we were able to increase ball speed by three miles an hour, raise the launch angle by two degrees and increase (indoor) carry distance by six yards. That was what the Achiever told us.

How about shaft flex? The Ice Man has been tested a hundred times and his nagging doubt is that he doesn't "load" the shaft in a way that reflects his swing speed. That's what the Max Out Shaft Max is all about. The Shaft Max is an instrumented driver that measures shaft deflection and plots that against a player's acceleration. Tempo comes into play. Sure enough, despite a 105 MPH average swing speed, the Shaft Max reported a relatively low load factor. At 105, the Ice Man would usually be fitted with an Extra Stiff flex. At a Shaft Max load factor of 5.8, that comes down to a nice, solid regular.

On the other hand, the Shaft Max showed that there was a lot of tip deflection in the Ice Man's swing. This is where the technology shines. Softer flex, stiff tip. Choices include the older (pre "dumbed down" version of the Aldila green NV, the Mitsubishi Whiteboard and Blueboard in "R" flex and a few other shafts that fit the profile.

The next test was for spin rate. To get accurate spin rate measurements we use the Max Out Golf Labs launch monitor. Optimizing driver spin is a tricky problem. Many launch monitors pretend to measure spin but don't. Our Achiever is one such machine. The Achiever measures ball speed and launch angle and relies on complex software to predict everything else. Spin rate numbers from the Achiever are useless. The Launch Max relies on high speed photography. We think it's the most accurate launch monitor available for measuring spin - and consequently for optimizing drivers.

Surprise number two: The Launch Max reported spin numbers 500 RPM lower, on average than the TM Burner. That's a big difference because the Burner is touted as a "low spin" head. The final numbers from the Launch Max showed a six yard additional carry but a very significant difference in run-out - resulting in a predicted 20 yard increase in distance - exactly conforming to the Ice Man's experience on the golf course.

The Ice Man went home and listed his Burner/Enzo combination on eBay that very night. That deal was done.

We made a "return date" to try the next options that have a chance to produce the "Magic Driver". First: we know that we want a shaft that has softer butt stiffness but a stiff tip. The Ice Man went into acquisition mode for that shaft. If he can't find one, we'll pull one our of our inventory.

Then, there's the question of the face thickness. We were getting pretty good results with the 2.8 millimeter face thickness on the Ice Man's driver. A little more investigation with the PowerBilt folks revealed that there was a "little problem" with the third option a 2.4mm face thickness of the Air Force One passing the USGA testing sequence. Now we know where the crucial "dividing line" is located. I'm thinking it's going to be very interesting to test the 2.6 mm face thickness with high swing speed players.

I'd also like to pick up a few of the non-conforming 2.4 mm face drivers - "just for fun".

 

 The Air Force One Challenge
 

The only strategy that makes sense is to open the testing up to all Golf Lab customers.

You have another chance to "donate your swing to science". We're not going to give you $100 cash if the Air Force One doesn't beat your current driver. But, we're going to give you a good chance to find out for yourself - one way or the other if the Air Force One works for you.

We got back in touch with the Powerbilt management and worked out a very interesting offer. They sent several Air Force One drivers for testing - some in the standard configuration with the Fujikura shaft that comes with the club - and some "heads only". We'll fit the heads with our Club Conex adapters that allow us to attach any shaft to any head. You can get a "custom fit". You're not married to the 45.5" Fujikura shaft.

The Powerbilt folks want to get the "buzz" started. On our side, we're just as interested to find out if the Ice Man's experience was real or just a lucky day with a driver that might have been - euphemistically - "out of spec".

We're setting up a "free challenge". At the Golf Lab, on the range and on the golf course. Launch monitors are reliable but can't tell the whole story about what happens at the range and on the course.

Here's the deal: Bring your driver in to the Golf Lab. We'll give you a "quick fit" to figure out where you should be with an Air Force One driver. Then, we'll give you an Air Force One driver that matches your "specs" for a two-day trial. Take it to the range; play with it for a round on the course. If you can, hit an extra ball every hole to compare your current "gamer" against the Air Force One.

Then, bring it back and tell us what happened. Your cost? Absolutely nothing except for your time. We'll even give you a free Air Force One hat for your trouble.

At the Golf Lab, it's always our desire to be on the "bleeding edge". This is a very early look at a product that most players would ignore. We can't guarantee that it will work for you, but that's because you're at the head of the line. The Air Force One is an idea that most golfers have assumed is "too good to be true". What if it isn't? What if it's real?

You've got a report from the Ice Man. This is a driver that is worth a look.

 

 Late Breaking News:
 

The Air Force One driver has just been reduced $100 in price. Golf Lab Members won't find that to be too surprising. With all of the "gift with purchase" programs announced from the major players in the last few weeks, a competitive response should be expected. The Air Force One is down from $399 to $299. Our view? Incredibly cheap by prior experience. Of course, only if it performs. Only you will be able to determine that.

Come in and find out for yourself (and be first) or wait for our next report based on actual customer experience.

And, don't miss the chance to let us earn a little money for our trouble. If you want to do a "full driver fitting" - we'll give you an honorary discount from our $125 price to $95. That includes our full test sequence, modifying your driver if required and testing for Balance-Certified Stabilizers. That will add an hour to your time commitment.

Call the Golf Lab: 650-493-1770 to book your no charge appointment.