Daiwa Alphas Air TW 20: What’s all the Fuss About?

What is the Daiwa Alphas Air TW Like to Own?

A dedicated BFS reel that already has a cult following within less than a year of being released.. Currently, the Daiwa Alphas Air TW 20 is the baitcasting reel with the best ultralight lure casting performance straight out of the box.

It is a low profile (rather than “round reel”) baitcasting design – and it is TINY in the hand. Daiwa approve it for lures down to a total weight of 1g – while some dedicated BFS anglers happily throw lures as light as 0.8g.

Similarly, the stock bearings create this casting performance with no interference, cleaning or replacement necessary. That is not to say that the serious reel-tuning addicts out there have nothing to do! Ryan Sagisi (Sagisi Customs Instagram) has already done some spectacular customisations (including metallic paint side-plates, custom handles and more).

Specifications of Daiwa Alphas Air TW 20

Daiwa T Wing System (TWS)

The latest version of this clever design avoids some previous criticisms of it spoiling how you can palm the reel when fishing (it now hides well inside the frame of the reel when winding)... The system works by having a narrow, vertical line slot on one face of the line guide while the spool is engaged (pic below). This pulls the line left and right to lay the line coils evenly across the spool as normal:

Then, when you press the thumb-bar down to disengage the spool ready for casting, the T-Wing line winder rotates forwards by 90 degrees. This exposes a much wider side-to-side aperture (as below). Since the line guide does not move left and right during free-spool casting, there could be a sharp angle between the line coming off the spool.

Of course, the line is wound from left to right (and the line-winder doesn't always stop at the extreme left or right limit). This means that the line will often have little or no angle change as it leaves the spool during casting.

Only on casts when the line-guide happens to stop at one extreme of the worm-drive does the angle get as extreme as in the picture. Even so, that extreme angle only occurs for the line wraps that are at the far edge of the spool. 

You can compare this line guide to the guide on another super-light-spool BFS reel in the Fishband Hyper Micro CR-HM06

Tuning the Daiwa Alphas Air TW 20

Roro Spool Options for Alphas Air TW 20

Below is now my affiliate link for the Roro Spool; so it doesn't cost you any more than the regular price; and Roro compensate me for sending customers to that product; so hopefully that's win:win and helps support our blog.

It is helpful to know that the custom Roro AX24 spool for the Daiwa Alphas Air TW 20 comes in two different performance options – The “Thicken” (i.e. thicker brake inductor) or the “Standard” (which is designed for expert casters or “senior players” as the Rorolure website describes).

Another key point is that the inductor cups on these Roro after-market spools are FIXED in place. That means they do not experience the dynamic braking provided by the Air system (see next section in this article). However, that isn’t necessarily a deal breaker because pretty much the only reason you’d want a super light spool is for close-quarters flipping and flicking tiny lures low and flat to the water. As long as the braking isn't too strong at the start of the cast, fixed inductors can work fine. Button below is my affiliate link:

Why Would You Even Change Out the KTF Stock Spool??

Shooting a lure into little gaps under and between branches, with a trajectory that is close to parallel to the water is a very different proposition to longer, looping distance casts. With a flat trajectory and aiming right at the target, there’s less of a prolonged slow-down of the lure towards the end of the cast.

Plus, with a light spool, you can release later in the cast and so avoid wild uncontrolled spool acceleration as the rod continues to straighten from a deep bend before the lure is really flying out. As long as the amount of braking is not so strong as to hamper the start-up rotation, those two things (combined with the short, accurate casting) reduce the benefits of a dynamic inductor and constant brake force is less of a downside.

The stock spool is designed to be great at a range of casts – including throwing a light lure a long way. At the same time, the stock KTF spool is great for that close quarters application too – it’s just that the ultralight Roro versions squeeze a little bit more very specialised performance out of the reel. However, because looping distance casts – with strong power at the beginning and a longer deceleration phase – dynamic brakes help to protect against backlashes; while not killing your distance. There's more on dynamic brakes a little further down in this article...

Now for the big issue with the Roro AX24 spools. This is simply that these spools have been out of stock for months and months. Who knows when they’ll be available again? Edit: RoRo emailed me to say that they will begin work on a new batch of these spools after Chinese New Year 2021 (Feb 12th). They hope that this will be ready within the first quarter of 2021 - which I guess is by March 31st...Watch this space!

 Also, with such ultralight construction, you must be incredibly careful with them (assuming you do eventually get hold of one!). The manufacturer only advises PE (braid) line to be used with the AX24 spools and their suggested diameter is Japanese PE 0.8 (equivalent to 0.148 mm diameter). You have been warned!

Daiwa’s Air Brake System (used on their “Air” reels)

Why is dynamic, magnetic braking a good idea? The issue that baitcasting brakes must solve is quite tricky. Basically, brakes need to prevent the spool from spinning too fast when the lure isn’t flying out quickly enough to pull all the line out - while not over-braking and reducing casting distance.

That excessive spool speed is a big issue in the very early part of the cast after the inertia of the spool has been overcome and the spool starts spinning. At that point, the rod is often still straightening and often the caster’s arm is still moving forwards. Imagine what kind of a bird’s nest you’d get if you tied your line to a dumbbell, put your thumb on the spool, pressed the thumb-bar, bent the rod to its full “fighting curve”…and then just let your thumb off the spool…

In the same way, the straightening of your rod, before the lure is really travelling beyond the rod-tip contains so much potential to set your spool whizzing round, it’s kind of scary.

There is an effect that the loop of line being towed behind the lure acts a bit like a drogue or parachute. As the forward momentum of the lure dies, the curved shape of the line in the air also reduces the “demand” for more line to be pulled from the spool. In other words, a straight line is the shortest distance between two points – so the line falling under gravity can feed more slack towards the lure without pulling any more line from the spool.

Stay with me on this, it's important to the Alphas brakes...

A combined parachute effect and reduced demand for line means that, with too little braking, you risk getting an over-run. At the same time, because the lure is slowing down anyway, too much braking will really shorten the cast. The Daiwa Alphas Air TW 20, tackles this situation with an innovative response; their dynamic “Air Brake”.

Daiwa’s Air Brake system meets this challenge by having a metal inductor “cup” that extends outwards against a spring in proportion to the rpm of the whole spool. When it extends, the inductor cup pushes further inside the bank of magnets and experiences more braking. As the spool slows, it retracts back out of the magnets – and the braking force is reduced by the same proportion. Right at the beginning of the cast – before it’s spinning at all – the inductor is fully retracted and experiences almost no braking; overcoming the problem of brakes not allowing the spool to start up easily.

One of the very neat things about the Daiwa Air brakes is that they achieve the early strong braking without the use of physical friction – where parts can wear out or become damaged. Centrifugal brakes tackle that early high-speed rotation control, but they do rely on friction.

Short version? dynamic magnetic braking is a really neat mechanism.

Casting with the Alphas Air TW 20

The overwhelming impression when casting with this reel is, right out of the box, your lures just fly out. It works really well. Compared to other high performance ultralight baitcasting reels, it seems to be very forgiving over a range of different conditions. I can only imagine that this comes from the integration of the fast-spinning tiny, light 28mm spool and the air brake system. That forgiveness leads to good consistency when placing your lures. Put simply, it feels easy to be accurate with the Daiwa Alphas Air TW 20.

The common consensus is that no other BFS reel can be taken right out of its box, spooled with line, set on a rod and then effectively cast a 1-g lure.

There are several side-by-side comparisons by different YouTube anglers with (even super-tuned) Shimano Aldebaran 16 reels – one of the deserved champion reels of ultralight bfs. the Alphas Air gets solid approval for its out of the box performance. Multiple reviewers note that it is easier to be accurate (and less likely to over-spool) when casting the Alphas Air compared to the Aldebaran.

That’s quite an achievement – again given the more affordable pricing of the Alphas Air compared to a super-tuned Aldebaran. 

Lure-Weight Sweet Spots for the Alphas Air TW 20

One of the things to come out of that characteristic “forgiveness” in the Daiwa Alphas Air TW 20 performance is that it copes pretty well with a range of lure weights in my experience. Most of what I, typically, fish onstream falls between around 1.8g and 6g in weight.
I’ve found that, using a 0.6 PE diameter braid (around 0.13 mm diameter) and adding 55m to the spool, I can get a good compromise between casting lighter lures and retaining strength for other fishing applications outside super-light lures for small species.

The Duel Armour F+ braid has a breaking strain of 5.5kg (about 12lb), which means it works well for jack pike (as long as you include a bite-proof trace). At the same time, it can happily cast 1.8g lures for small trout without feeling clumsy.

That means, personally, it feels like the sweet spot for lure weights (matched to an appropriate rod of course) will be in the 1g – 7 g range.
That being said, while you might start getting closer to spooling yourself, I don’t see it struggling at all with 10g lures and the correct rod.

What’s Not to Like About the Daiwa Alphas Air TW 20?

Let’s see, what would be fair to summarise about the Alphas Air TW 20?..

On the "Zero Adjuster" subject...The idea, as I understand it, is that the spool tension comes ready-adjusted to the perfect performance setting from the factory. In this sense, “Zero Adjustment” is necessary. That sort of begs the question “why make it adjustable at all?” or “why not call it a spool tension knob; factory preset”. Making it out of plastic doesn’t really make a great stylistic match to the overall JDM, super-engineered quality feel.

Overall, though, in my opinion - any and all of those critiques really don't amount to anything like enough to hurt the performance and experience of owning the Daiwa Alphas Air TW 20. It's simply a fantastic reel and is perfect for the job it is designed to do.

Plus, you should be able to get a Sagisi drag clicker if you need to hear it purr...

Let me know what I missed (or what was useful) in the comments,

Paul