Nope. The flag, itself, is a straw so the holder can be a vertical piece of shaft. My teams have used shaft successfully for two years now. Those silly FRC folks have the flag thing backwards

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Referrring to <R13> in the interactive manual here:
http://forums.usfirst.org/showpost.p...51&postcount=2
it tells you the dimensions of the flag tube (part of the flag itself)