Frisbee
Encyclopedia
A flying disc is a disc-shaped glider that is generally plastic
and roughly 20 centimetre 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 term frisbee, often used uncapitalized to generically
describe all flying discs, has been 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.
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 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 to the dog. Flying rings are also available, which typically fly significantly farther than any traditional flying disc. There are illuminated discs meant for night time play that use phosphorescent
plastic, or battery powered light emitting diodes
. There are also discs that whistle when they reach a certain velocity in flight.
The clay target used in trap shooting
, almost identical to a flying disc in shape, was designed in the 19th century.
Walter Frederick Morrison
discovered a market for the modern day flying disc in 1938 when he and his future wife Lucile were offered 25¢ 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
in 2007. They continued their business until World War II, when he served in the army Air Forces flying P-47s
and spent time as a prisoner of war. Upon his return from the war, Morrison sketched a design for an aerodynamically
-improved flying disc he dubbed the Whirlo-Way. By 1948 after design modifications and experimentation with several prototypes, Morrison and his business partner Warren Franscioni began producing the first plastic discs. They re-named their invention Flyin-Saucer in the wake of reported UFO sightings. "We worked fairs, demonstrating it", Morrison told the Virginian-Pilot. "That's where we learned we could sell these things, because people ate them up." Morrison and Franscioni ended their partnership in 1950. After further design refinements in 1955, Morrison began producing a new disc, which he called the Pluto Platter. He sold the rights to Wham-O
on January 23, 1957 (his 37th birthday), and the following year, 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" after learning that East Coast college students were calling the Pluto Platter by that name, the term "Frisbee" coming from the name of the New England
pie manufacturer Frisbie Pie Company
. "I thought the name was a horror...terrible", Morrison told The Press-Enterprise of Riverside
in 2007. In 1982 Morrison told Forbes
magazine he had received about $2 million in royalty payments and said "I wouldn't change the name of it for the world".
The man who was behind the Frisbee's phenomenal success however was "Steady" Ed Headrick, 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.
Sales soared for the toy, which was marketed as a new sport. In 1964, the first "Professional Model" went on sale. Headrick patented the new design as the Frisbee patent, highlighting the "Rings of Headrick" and marketed and pushed the Professional Model Frisbee and "Frisbee" as a sport. (U.S. Patent
3,359,678).
Headrick, commonly known as the "Father of Disc Sports", 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, in accordance with his final requests, his ashes were molded into memorial Frisbees and given to family and close friends.
In 2000 Walter Frederick Morrison made a publicly announced that was not the inventor of the flying disk .
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. 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 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.
Plastic
A plastic material is any of a wide range of synthetic or semi-synthetic organic solids used in the manufacture of industrial products. Plastics are typically polymers of high molecular mass, and may contain other substances to improve performance and/or reduce production costs...
and roughly 20 centimetre in diameter
Diameter
In geometry, a diameter of a circle is any straight line segment that passes through the center of the circle and whose endpoints are on the circle. The diameters are the longest chords of the circle...
, with a lip. The shape of the disc, an airfoil
Airfoil
An airfoil or aerofoil is the shape of a wing or blade or sail as seen in cross-section....
in cross-section, allows it to fly
Flight
Flight is the process by which an object moves either through an atmosphere or beyond it by generating lift or propulsive thrust, or aerostatically using buoyancy, or by simple ballistic movement....
by generating lift
Lift (force)
A fluid flowing past the surface of a body exerts a surface force on it. Lift is the component of this force that is perpendicular to the oncoming flow direction. It contrasts with the drag force, which is the component of the surface force parallel to the flow direction...
as it moves through the air while rotating.
The term frisbee, often used uncapitalized to generically
Genericized trademark
A genericized trademark is a trademark or brand name that has become the colloquial or generic description for, or synonymous with, a general class of product or service, rather than as an indicator of source or affiliation as intended by the trademark's holder...
describe all flying discs, has been a registered trademark
Trademark
A trademark, trade mark, or trade-mark is a distinctive sign or indicator used by an individual, business organization, or other legal entity to identify that the products or services to consumers with which the trademark appears originate from a unique source, and to distinguish its products or...
of the Wham-O
Wham-O
Wham-O Inc. is a toy company currently located in California, USA. They are known for marketing many popular toys in the past 50 years, including the Hula Hoop, the Frisbee, Slip 'N Slide, Super Ball, Trac-Ball, Silly String, Hacky Sack and the Boogie board....
toy company. Though such use is not encouraged by the company, the common use of the name as a generic term
Genericized trademark
A genericized trademark is a trademark or brand name that has become the colloquial or generic description for, or synonymous with, a general class of product or service, rather than as an indicator of source or affiliation as intended by the trademark's holder...
has put the trademark in jeopardy.
Flying discs are thrown and caught for free-form recreation
Recreation
Recreation is an activity of leisure, leisure being discretionary time. The "need to do something for recreation" is an essential element of human biology and psychology. Recreational activities are often done for enjoyment, amusement, or pleasure and are considered to be "fun"...
and as part of many different flying disc games
Flying disc games
Flying disc games are games played with flying discs . Some of the games, such as Ultimate and Disc golf, are sports with substantial international followings.-History:...
. A wide range of flying disc variants are available commercially. Disc golf
Disc golf
Disc golf is a disc game in which individual players throw a flying disc into a basket or at a target. According to the Professional Disc Golf Association, "The object of the game is to traverse a course from beginning to end in the fewest number of throws of the disc." Of the more than 3000...
discs are usually smaller but denser and are tailored for particular flight profiles to increase/decrease stability and distance. Disc dog
Disc dog
Disc dog is the more generic name for what is commonly called Frisbee dog. In disc dog competitions, dogs and their human flying disc throwers compete in events such as distance catching and somewhat choreographed freestyle catching. The sport celebrates the bond between handler and dog, by...
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, which typically fly significantly farther than any traditional flying disc. There are illuminated discs meant for night time play that use phosphorescent
Phosphorescence
Phosphorescence is a specific type of photoluminescence related to fluorescence. Unlike fluorescence, a phosphorescent material does not immediately re-emit the radiation it absorbs. The slower time scales of the re-emission are associated with "forbidden" energy state transitions in quantum...
plastic, or battery powered light emitting diodes
Light-emitting diode
A light-emitting diode is a semiconductor light source. LEDs are used as indicator lamps in many devices and are increasingly used for other lighting...
. There are also discs that whistle when they reach a certain velocity in flight.
History
Trap shooting
Trap shooting is one of the three major forms of competitive clay pigeon shooting . The others are skeet shooting and sporting clays. There are many versions including Olympic trap, Double trap , Down-The-Line, and Nordic trap. American trap is most popular in the United States and Canada...
, almost identical to a flying disc in shape, was designed in the 19th century.
Walter Frederick Morrison
Walter Frederick Morrison
Walter Fredrick "Fred" Morrison was an American inventor and entrepreneur, best known as the inventor of the Frisbee. He was born in Richfield, Utah....
discovered a market for the modern day flying disc in 1938 when he and his future wife Lucile were offered 25¢ for a cake pan that they were tossing back and forth to each other on the beach in Santa Monica, California
Santa Monica, California
Santa Monica is a beachfront city in western Los Angeles County, California, US. Situated on Santa Monica Bay, it is surrounded on three sides by the city of Los Angeles — Pacific Palisades on the northwest, Brentwood on the north, West Los Angeles on the northeast, Mar Vista on the east, and...
. "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
The Virginian-Pilot
The Virginian-Pilot is a daily newspaper based in Norfolk, Virginia, and serving the Hampton Roads metropolitan area, southeastern Virginia, the Eastern Shore of Virginia, and northeastern North Carolina. The flagship property of Landmark Media Enterprises, The Pilot is Virginia's largest daily...
in 2007. They continued their business until World War II, when he served in the army Air Forces flying P-47s
P-47 Thunderbolt
Republic Aviation's P-47 Thunderbolt, also known as the "Jug", was the largest, heaviest, and most expensive fighter aircraft in history to be powered by a single reciprocating engine. It was heavily armed with eight .50-caliber machine guns, four per wing. When fully loaded, the P-47 weighed up to...
and spent time as a prisoner of war. Upon his return from the war, Morrison sketched a design for an aerodynamically
Aerodynamics
Aerodynamics is a branch of dynamics concerned with studying the motion of air, particularly when it interacts with a moving object. Aerodynamics is a subfield of fluid dynamics and gas dynamics, with much theory shared between them. Aerodynamics is often used synonymously with gas dynamics, with...
-improved flying disc he dubbed the Whirlo-Way. By 1948 after design modifications and experimentation with several prototypes, Morrison and his business partner Warren Franscioni began producing the first plastic discs. They re-named their invention Flyin-Saucer in the wake of reported UFO sightings. "We worked fairs, demonstrating it", Morrison told the Virginian-Pilot. "That's where we learned we could sell these things, because people ate them up." Morrison and Franscioni ended their partnership in 1950. After further design refinements in 1955, Morrison began producing a new disc, which he called the Pluto Platter. He sold the rights to Wham-O
Wham-O
Wham-O Inc. is a toy company currently located in California, USA. They are known for marketing many popular toys in the past 50 years, including the Hula Hoop, the Frisbee, Slip 'N Slide, Super Ball, Trac-Ball, Silly String, Hacky Sack and the Boogie board....
on January 23, 1957 (his 37th birthday), and the following year, Morrison was awarded U.S. Design Patent
Design patent
In the United States, a design patent is a patent granted on the ornamental design of a functional item. Design patents are a type of industrial design right. Ornamental designs of jewelry, furniture, beverage containers and computer icons are examples of objects that are covered by design...
D183,626 for his flying disc.
In June 1957, Wham-O co-founder Richard Knerr
Richard Knerr
Richard Knerr was an American inventor best known for marketing the Frisbee and Hula Hoop. In 1948 he cofounded the company Wham-O with Arthur Melin . In 1957, an Australian visiting California told them offhand that in his home country, children twirled bamboo hoops around their waists in gym class...
decided to stimulate sales by giving the discs the additional brand name "Frisbee" after learning that East Coast college students were calling the Pluto Platter by that name, the term "Frisbee" coming from the name of the New England
New England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
pie manufacturer Frisbie Pie Company
Frisbie Pie Company
The Frisbie Pie Company was founded in 1851 by William Russell Frisbie in Bridgeport, Connecticut, when he bought and renamed a branch of the Olds Baking Company. The company was located on Kossuth Street in Bridgeport's East Side, where nearby school kids tossed the plates around and yelled...
. "I thought the name was a horror...terrible", Morrison told The Press-Enterprise of Riverside
Riverside, California
Riverside is a city in Riverside County, California, United States, and the county seat of the eponymous county. Named for its location beside the Santa Ana River, it is the largest city in the Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario metropolitan area of Southern California, 4th largest inland California...
in 2007. In 1982 Morrison told Forbes
Forbes
Forbes is an American publishing and media company. Its flagship publication, the Forbes magazine, is published biweekly. Its primary competitors in the national business magazine category are Fortune, which is also published biweekly, and Business Week...
magazine he had received about $2 million in royalty payments and said "I wouldn't change the name of it for the world".
The man who was behind the Frisbee's phenomenal success however was "Steady" Ed Headrick, 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.
Sales soared for the toy, which was marketed as a new sport. In 1964, the first "Professional Model" went on sale. Headrick patented the new design as the Frisbee patent, highlighting the "Rings of Headrick" and marketed and pushed the Professional Model Frisbee and "Frisbee" as a sport. (U.S. Patent
United States patent law
United States patent law was established "to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;" as provided by the United States Constitution. Congress implemented these...
3,359,678).
Headrick, commonly known as the "Father of Disc Sports", 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
Cremation
Cremation is the process of reducing bodies to basic chemical compounds such as gasses and bone fragments. This is accomplished through high-temperature burning, vaporization and oxidation....
and, in accordance with his final requests, his ashes were molded into memorial Frisbees and given to family and close friends.
Flying disc games
- Crosbee
- Disc dogDisc dogDisc dog is the more generic name for what is commonly called Frisbee dog. In disc dog competitions, dogs and their human flying disc throwers compete in events such as distance catching and somewhat choreographed freestyle catching. The sport celebrates the bond between handler and dog, by...
- Disc golfDisc golfDisc golf is a disc game in which individual players throw a flying disc into a basket or at a target. According to the Professional Disc Golf Association, "The object of the game is to traverse a course from beginning to end in the fewest number of throws of the disc." Of the more than 3000...
- Dodge disc
- Double disc court
- Durango bootDurango BootDurango boot is a competitive, non-contact sport that makes use of a flying disc , somewhat similar to Ultimate. The name Durango comes from the fact that the sport was first played in Durango, Colorado...
- Flutterguts
- Freestyle
- FricketFricketFricket or disc cricket is a disc game generally played by two teams of two players each , though it is possible to play one-on-one. The game is roughly derived from cricket , and played with flying discs...
(a.k.a. disc cricket, cups, Suzy sticks, crispy wickets) - Friskee
- GoaltimateGoaltimateGoaltimate is a half-court disc game derived from ultimate, similar to hot box. The object is to score points by throwing a flying disc to a teammate in a small scoring area, through a large semicircular hoop called the goal. The name is a portmanteau of "goal" and "ultimate".-History:Goaltimate...
- Guts
- Hot box
- Kan-jamKan-jamKanJam is a flying disc game, played with a flying disc and two cans in which you deflect the disc into the can. The KanJam company is based in western New York.-Origin:...
- Polish horseshoes
- SchtickSchtick (disc game)Schtick Disc is a limited-contact team sport played with two or more flying discs , and although considered a variant of Ultimate, shares little similarities beyond the use of discs...
- UltimateUltimate (sport)Ultimate is a sport played with a 175 gram flying disc. The object of the game is to score points by passing the disc to a player in the opposing end zone, similar to an end zone in American football or rugby...
In 2000 Walter Frederick Morrison made a publicly announced that was not the inventor of the flying disk .
Physics
LiftLift (force)
A fluid flowing past the surface of a body exerts a surface force on it. Lift is the component of this force that is perpendicular to the oncoming flow direction. It contrasts with the drag force, which is the component of the surface force parallel to the flow direction...
is generated in primarily the same way as a traditional asymmetric airfoil
Airfoil
An airfoil or aerofoil is the shape of a wing or blade or sail as seen in cross-section....
, 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
Angular momentum
In physics, angular momentum, moment of momentum, or rotational momentum is a conserved vector quantity that can be used to describe the overall state of a physical system...
vector, stabilizing its attitude gyroscopically
Gyroscope
A gyroscope is a device for measuring or maintaining orientation, based on the principles of angular momentum. In essence, a mechanical gyroscope is a spinning wheel or disk whose axle is free to take any orientation...
. 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
Precession
Precession is a change in the orientation of the rotation axis of a rotating body. It can be defined as a change in direction of the rotation axis in which the second Euler angle is constant...
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
Disc golf
Disc golf is a disc game in which individual players throw a flying disc into a basket or at a target. According to the Professional Disc Golf Association, "The object of the game is to traverse a course from beginning to end in the fewest number of throws of the disc." Of the more than 3000...
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 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.
See also
- TronTron-Film:*Tron , a franchise that began in 1982 with the Walt Disney Pictures film Tron** Tron , a 1982 science fiction film by Disney, starring Jeff Bridges, Bruce Boxleitner, Cindy Morgan, Dan Shor and David Warner...
and Tron: Legacy—science fiction filmScience fiction filmScience fiction film is a film genre that uses science fiction: speculative, science-based depictions of phenomena that are not necessarily accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial life forms, alien worlds, extrasensory perception, and time travel, often along with futuristic...
s that make use of flying discs in their computerized combat.
- Ken WesterfieldKen WesterfieldKen Westerfield is a pioneering Frisbee player.Westerfield and Childhood friend started playing Frisbee in High School, impressing the other students with a variety of controlled throws and trick catches...
a pioneering disc player
Further reading
- 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
- Horowitz, Judy, and Bloom, Billy; Frisbee: More Than A Game of Catch, Leisure Press, Champagne, Illinois (1984); ISBN 978-0880111058
- 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 0-915516-19-5
- 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
- Morrison, Fred & Kennedy, Phil; Flat Flip Flies Straight! True Origins of the Frisbee, Wormhole Publishers, Wethersfield, CT (January 2006); ISBN 0-9774517-4-7
- Lorenz, Ralph; Spinning Flight: Dynamics of Frisbees, Boomerangs, Samaras and Skipping Stones, Copernicus, New York (September 2006); ISBN 978-0-387-30779-4
External links
- Flying Disc Federation of India
- World Flying Disc Federation (WFDF) – international sports governing body for flying disc games
- Flying Disc Federation of Pakistan (FDFP) – national federation for flying disc games
- Frisbee Collective – a gallery of over 200 fly discs from all over the globe