Hello Earl Jeff,
I totally agree that footing a shaft in any reasonable length does not change the static spine, I have never said otherwise. I also agree that the majority of the bending happens in the middle of the shaft when loaded statically and have done similar experiments with my spine tester.
My statements, and the equations developed for the DSC, only relate to dynamic spine. Adding an external footing effectively reduces the usable arrow length and we all know how that stiffens a dynamic spine without any change to the static spine of the shaft. What most people do not account for well in the DSC is the additional weight added up front from the footing material itself. (Basically the footed area becomes a really long point) When this weight, plus the weight of the original shaft underneath, is taken into consideration then there is very little dynamic spine change at reasonable footing lengths. Most of the time the amount of change is well withing the bows tolerance range and no significant change to arrow flight is observed. What does change is total weight and FOC% both go up.
-Stu