A flying disc is a disc-shaped gliding object or toy that is generally plastic and roughly 20 to 25 cm (7.9 to 9.8 in) in diameter with a lip,[1] used recreationally for throwing and catching, for example, in flying disc games. The shape of the disc, an airfoil in cross-section, allows it to fly by generating lift as it moves through the air while spinning. The term Frisbee, often used capitalized, to generically describe all flying discs, is a registered trademark of the Wham-O toy company. Though such use is not encouraged by the company, the common use of the name as a generic term has put the trademark in jeopardy; accordingly, many "Frisbee" games are now known as "ultimate" or "disc" games.[2][3]
Flying discs are thrown and caught for free-form 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 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 to the dog. Flying rings are also available; they typically travel significantly farther than any traditional flying disc. There are also illuminated discs meant for nighttime play; they are made of a phosphorescent plastic or contain battery-powered light-emitting diodes. Others whistle when they reach a certain velocity in flight.
Contents |
History [edit]
Warren Franscioni discovered a market for the modern-day flying disc[4] in 1938 when he and future wife Lucile were offered US 25 cents for a cake pan that they were tossing back and forth to each other on the beach in Santa Monica, California. "That got the wheels turning, because you could buy a cake pan for 5 cents, and if people on the beach were willing to pay a quarter for it, well, there was a business," Morrison told The Virginian-Pilot newspaper in 2007.[this quote needs a citation] They continued their business until World War II, when he served in the Army Air Force, flying a P-47s and spent time as a prisoner of war. Returning from the war, Morrison sketched a design for an aerodynamically-improved flying disc that he called the Whirlo-Way. By 1948, after design modifications and experimentation with several prototypes, Morrison and business partner Warren Franscioni began producing the first plastic discs, renaming it the Flyin-Saucer in the wake of reported unidentified-flying-object sightings. "We worked fairs, demonstrating it", Morrison told the Virginian-Pilot. The two of them once overheard someone saying they used wires to make the discs hover like they were, so they used a sales pitch, "The Flyin-Saucer is free, but the invisible wire is $1." "That's where we learned we could sell these things, because people ate them up [meaning, were enthusiastic about them]." Morrison and Franscioni ended their partnership in early 1950. In 1954 Morrison formed his own company called American Trends to buy and sell Flyin-Saucers (by then made of more flexible polypropylene plastic) from Southern California Plastics, the original molder. After learning he could produce his own disc more cheaply, in 1955 Morrison designed a new disc, the Pluto Platter, the archetype of all modern flying discs. He sold the rights to Wham-O on January 23, 1957 and in 1958, Morrison was awarded U.S. Design Patent D183,626 for his flying disc.
In June 1957, Wham-O co-founder Richard Knerr decided to stimulate sales by giving the discs the additional brand name Frisbee (pronounced "friz'-bee"), after learning that Northeastern college students were calling the Pluto Platter by that name,[5] the term "Frisbee" coming from the name of the Bridgeport, CT pie manufacturer Frisbie Pie Company.[6] "I thought the name was a horror... terrible," Morrison told The Press-Enterprise of Riverside[this quote needs a citation] in 2007. In 1982, Morrison told Forbes magazine[this quote needs a citation] that he had received about US$2 million in royalty payments and said: "I wouldn't change the name of it for the world."[7]
The man behind the Frisbee's phenomenal success, however, was Edward "Steady Ed" Headrick (Pasadena, Cal., June 28, 1924 — La Selva Beach, Cal., August 12, 2002), hired in 1964 as Wham-O's new general manager and vice president in charge of marketing. Headrick soon redesigned the Pluto Platter by reworking the rim thickness and top design, creating a more controllable disc that could be thrown accurately.[8]
Sales skyrocketed for the toy, which was marketed as a new sport. In 1964, the first professional model went on sale. Headrick patented the new design, highlighting the new raised ridges (the "Rings of Headrick") that stablized flight and marketed and pushed the Professional Model Frisbee and "Frisbee" as a sport. (U.S. Patent 3,359,678).[9]
Headrick, who became known as the father of disc sports,[10] later founded The International Frisbee Association (IFA) and began establishing standards for various sports using the Frisbee such as Distance, Freestyle and Guts. Upon his death, Headrick was cremated, and, as requested by him, his ashes were molded into memorial Frisbees and given to family and close friends.[11]
Flying disc games [edit]
|
Physics [edit]
 |
This section does not cite any references or sources. (January 2012) |
Lift is generated in primarily the same way as a traditional asymmetric airfoil, that is, by accelerating upper airflow so 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, not altitude, gyroscopically. Depending on the cross-sectional shape of the airfoil the amount of lift generated by the front and back parts of the disc can be unequal. If the disc were not spinning, its absence would tend to make it pitch. When the disc is spinning, however, such 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. Many disc golf discs, however, 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," which in extreme cases looks like a taco shell) can cause adverse effects 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.
See also [edit]
- Tron and Tron: Legacy, science-fiction films that make use of flying discs in their computerized combat.
- Ken Westerfield,(freestyle history)
- Flying disc techniques
- Flying ring
- Flying cylinder
- Ultimate Canada
References [edit]
- ^ The word "disc" is commonly spelled with either a "c" ("disc") or a "k" ("disk").
- ^ Overview of Trademark Law: Can trademark rights be lost?
- ^ Losing Grip on the Frisbee
- ^ Morrison, Fred; Phil Kennedy (January 2006). Flat Flip Flies Straight! True Origins of the Frisbee. Wethersfield, CT: Wormhole Publishers. ISBN 978-0-9774517-4-6. OCLC 233974379.
- ^ "'Frisbee' Marks 50th Anniversary of Name Change". CTVglobemedia. 2007-06-16. Retrieved 2007-06-19.
- ^ "Frisbee Inventor Dies at 90 - CNN.com". CNN. 2010-02-12. Retrieved 2010-05-02.
- ^ McLellan, Dennis (2010-02-13). "Walter Fredrick Morrison Dies at 90; Father of the Frisbee". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2010-02-14.
- ^ Morrison, Fred; Phil Kennedy (January 2006). Flat Flip Flies Straight! True Origins of the Frisbee. Wethersfield, CT: Wormhole Publishers. ISBN 978-0-9774517-4-6. OCLC 233974379. Fred Morrison: "Headrick had an eye for product design.... The "NEW LOOK" contributed mightily to its phenomenal success.... I've never known what financial arrangements Headrick had with Wham-O. It would have been interesting to know, but knowing wouldn't have changed anything. It was enough to know that under Headrick's guidance our increasing bank account was due to what he was doing."
- ^ The First Flight of the Frisbee: The History of the Frisbee
- ^ Malafronte, Victor A. (1998). F. Davis Johnson (ed.), ed. The Complete Book of Frisbee: The History of the Sport & the First Official Price Guide. Rachel Forbes (illus.). Alameda, Cal.: American Trends Publishing Company. ISBN 0-9663855-2-7. OCLC 39487710.
- ^ "Edward 'Steady Ed' Headrick" Find A Grave.
Further reading [edit]
- Johnson, Stancil E. D., M. D., Frisbee, A Practitioner's Manual and Definitive Treatise, New York City: Workman Publishing Company, 1975 | ISBN 978-0-911104-53-0
- Horowitz, Judy, and Bloom, Billy, Frisbee: More Than A Game of Catch, Champagne, Ill.: Leisure Press, Champagne, 1984 | ISBN 978-0-88011-105-8
- Norton, Gary, The Official Frisbee Handbook, New York, Toronto, London: Bantam Books, 1972
- Danna, Mark, and Poynter, Dan, Frisbee Players' Handbook, Santa Barbara, Cal.: Parachuting Publications, 1978 | ISBN 0-915516-19-5
- Tips, Charles, and Roddick, Dan, Frisbee Sports & Games, Millbrae, Cal.: Celestial Arts, Millbrae, Cal., 1979 | ISBN 978-0-89087-233-8
- Tips, Charles, Frisbee by the Masters, Millbrae, Cal.: Celestial Arts, 1977 | ISBN 978-0-89087-142-3
- Morrison, Fred & Kennedy, Phil, Flat Flip Flies Straight! True Origins of the Frisbee, Westerfield, Conn.: Wormhole Publishers, 2006 | ISBN 0-9774517-4-7
- Lorenz, Ralph; Spinning Flight: Dynamics of Frisbees, Boomerangs, Samaras and Skipping Stones, New York City: Copernicus, 2006 | ISBN 978-0-387-30779-4
External links [edit]
 |
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Frisbee |
- Flying Disc Federation of India
- World Flying Disc Federation (WFDF) – international sports governing body for flying disc games
- Frisbee Collective – a gallery of over 200 fly discs from all over the globe
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
A portion of the proceeds from advertising on Digplanet goes to supporting Wikipedia.
