Flying disc

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"Frisbee" redirects here. For the amusement ride, see Frisbee (ride).
A player catching a flying disc.
A player catching a flying disc.

Flying discs (commonly called Frisbees) are disc-shaped objects, which are generally plastic and roughly 20 to 25 centimeters (8–10 inches) in diameter, with a lip. The shape of the disc, an airfoil in cross-section, allows it to fly by generating lift as it moves through the air while rotating. The name Frisbee is a registered trademark of the Wham-O toy company, but is often used generically to describe all flying discs.

Flying discs are thrown and caught for recreation, and as part of many different flying disc games. A wide range of flying disc variants are available commercially. Disc golf discs are usually smaller but denser and are tailored for particular flight profiles to increase/decrease stability and distance. Disc dog sports use relatively slow flying discs made of more pliable material to better resist a dog's bite and prevent injury. Ring shaped discs are also available which typically fly significantly farther than any traditional flying disc. There are illuminated discs meant for night time play which use phosphorescent plastic, or battery powered light emitting diodes. There are also discs that whistle when they reach a certain velocity in flight.

Contents

[edit] History

A player throwing a flying disc; Mackinaw City, Michigan.
A player throwing a flying disc; Mackinaw City, Michigan.

The clay target used in trapshooting, almost identical to a flying disc in shape, was designed in the 19th century. The modern day era of flying discs began with the concept of designing and selling a commercially-produced flying disc.

The Frisbie Pie Company (1871–1958) of Bridgeport, Connecticut, made pies that were sold to many New England colleges. Hungry college students soon discovered that the empty pie tins could be tossed and caught, providing endless hours of sport. Many colleges have claimed to be the home of "he who was first to fling." Yale College has argued[citation needed] that in 1820, an undergraduate named Elihu Frisbie grabbed a passing collection tray from the chapel and flung it out into the campus, thereby becoming the true inventor of the Frisbee. That tale is dubious, as the "Frisbie's Pies" origin is well-documented. Walter Frederick Morrison claims that it was a popcorn can lid that he tossed with his girlfriend (and later wife) Lu at a 1937 Thanksgiving Day gathering in Los Angeles that inspired his interest in developing a commercially-produced flying disc. In 1946 he sketched out plans for a disc he called the Whirlo-Way, which, co-developed and financed by Warren Franscioni in 1948, became the very first commercially produced plastic flying disc, marketed under the name Pipco Flyin-Saucer. Morrison had just returned to the US after World War II, where he had been a prisoner in the infamous Stalag 13. His partnership with Franscioni, who was also a war veteran, ended in 1950, before their product had achieved any real success.

In 1955, Morrison produced a new plastic flying disc called the Pluto Platter, to cash in on the growing popularity of UFOs with the American public. The Pluto Platter became the design basis for later flying discs. In 1957, Wham-O began production of more discs (then still marketed as Pluto Platters). The next year, Morrison was awarded US Design Patent 183,626 for his flying disc.

Wham-O co-founder, Richard Knerr, in search of a catchy new name to help increase sales, and hearing of the colloquial name "Frisbie", gave the disks the trademarkable brand name "Frisbee" (which is pronounced the same as "Frisbie") on June 17, 1957.[1] Sales soared for the toy, which was marketed as a new sport. In 1964, the first "professional" model went on sale. Ed Hedrick was the sales manager at Wham-O who patented the company's design for the aerodynamically improved modern Frisbee (US Patent 3,359,678).[2]

[edit] Flying disc games

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Main article: Flying disc games

[edit] Physics

Main article: Physics of flying discs

Lift is generated in primarily the same way as a traditional asymmetric airfoil, that is, by accelerating upper airflow such that a pressure difference gives rise to a lifting force. Small ridges near the leading edge act as turbulators, reducing flow separation by forcing the airflow to become turbulent after it passes over the ridges.

The rotating flying disc has a vertical angular momentum vector, stabilizing its attitude gyroscopically. Depending on the cross-sectional shape of the airfoil, the amount of lift generated by the front and back parts of the disc may be unequal. If the disc were not spinning, this would tend to make it pitch. When the disc is spinning, however, such a torque would cause it to precess about the roll axis, causing its trajectory to curve to the left or the right. Most discs are designed to be aerodynamically stable, so that this roll is self-correcting for a fairly broad range of velocities and rates of spin. However, many disc golf discs are intentionally designed to be unstable. Higher rates of spin lead to better stability, and for a given rate of spin, there is generally a range of velocities that are stable.

Even a slight deformation in a disc, called a "Taco," as extreme cases look like a taco shell, can cause adverse affects when throwing long range. It can be observed by holding the disc horizontally at eye level and looking at the rim while slowly rotating the disc.


[edit] See also

[edit] References

 This article needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (September 2007)
  1. ^ "'Frisbee' marks 50th anniversary of name change", CTVglobemedia, 2007-06-16. Retrieved on 2007-06-19. 
  2. ^ [1][unreliable source?]

[edit] Further reading

  • Morrison, Walter Frederic, and Kennedy, Phil; Flat Flip Flies Straight! True Origins of the Frisbee, Wormhole Publishers, Wethersfield, CT (June 2006); ISBN 978-0-9774517-4-6
  • Stancil. E. D., and Johnson, M. D.; Frisbee, A Practitioner's Manual and Definitive Treatise, Workman Publishing Company, New York (July, 1975); ISBN 978-0-911104-53-0
  • Norton, Gary; The Official Frisbee Handbook, Bantam Books, Toronto/New York/London (July, 1972); no ISBN
  • Danna, Mark, and Poynter, Dan; Frisbee Players' Handbook, Parachuting Publications, Santa Barbara, California (1978); ISBN 0915516195
  • Tips, Charles, and Roddick, Dan; Frisbee Sports & Games, Celestial Arts, Millbrae, California (March 1979); ISBN 978-0-89087-233-8
  • Tips, Charles; Frisbee by the Masters, Celestial Arts, Millbrae, California (March 1977); ISBN 978-0-89087-142-3
  • Lorenz, Ralph; Spinning Flight: Dynamics of Frisbees, Boomerangs, Samaras and Skipping Stones, Copernicus, New York (September 2006); ISBN 978-0-387-30779-4

[edit] External links