Explanation of the physics of flying discs (FIXED)

[Johnny_Crunch]

Wow, that's a lot of work

[blackmamba5490]

Rameka,
Wonderful job on your explanations and follow ups to peoples questions. As a business major and history buff, i have a hard time grasping a lot of these concepts but i have re-read your orignial post 4 times now and am getting a much better understanding. Just wanted to let you know your hard work is appreciated and well-worth it. You should make a video explaining your points so i could watch that too!

[Apoth]

I had never seen this. Thanks for bumping it.

I still don't quite grasp why fade occurs, but I understand why a disc turns.

[Toro71]

Originally Posted by sidewinding

It is obvious that discs of the same mold but different plastics have different flight characteristics but I have noticed something. It may just be coincidence but I have noticed that a plastics ability to absorb permenant marker seems to be directly proportional to it's drag. If you take two discs of the same mold like a champion wraith and a dx wraith and write your name on them with a sharpie and then use acetone to remove the sharpie, the disc with the least amount of sharpie left in it (DX plastic) will fly farther and have less fade than the other one(Champion plastic).

My theory is that at a microscopic level air will absorb into the plastic just as the sharpie ink did and adhere better and therefore slow the disc down faster.

So if this is true, if you could create a plastic that sharpie will not stick to then you would have the ultimate long flying plastic.

I'm curious about this too. I'd say it seems especially true with older champ plastic, that's started to break down some. Seems REALLY porous. I've always felt like, given same mold, Champ has less glide than Star. Champ's not just more OS, it slows down faster....?

[LoPan12]

Originally Posted by BrotherDave

Oh lord, not this thread again. Will no one accept my theory of turn and fade occurring thanks to the invisible Hand of God? Guess I'm the only creationist disc golfer.

I think its Nac Mac Feegles jumping up and down on one side or the other...
I'm a NE (it involved lots of fluid dynamics) and even I quit reading this after a couple pages...

[discgolfcrazy]

can someone explain to me how altitude and temperature effect the flight of a disc, why distance is effected?

[kevdiv48]

Originally Posted by discgolfcrazy

can someone explain to me how altitude and temperature effect the flight of a disc, why distance is effected?

*affect
A 2 second answer is that higher elevation should result in farther distance because the air is thinner and thus there is less drag. Similarly discs would probably flight more high speed understable.
As for temperature I am not sure. There was a thread on that a few weeks back.

[discgolfcrazy]

lol i thought i had it right this time, i even looked it over, affect

[KniceZ]

Higher Altitude lowers barometric pressure - thinner air so less drag. Lower Temperature lowers humidity - also less drag.

Lowe temp may also change the stability to some extent since the disc will shrink. But how that changes stability may vary depending on the disc design - i.e. flight plate thickness, Plc, etc

[BogeyNoMore]

Originally Posted by blackmamba5490

Rameka,
Wonderful job on your explanations and follow ups to peoples questions. As a business major and history buff, i have a hard time grasping a lot of these concepts but i have re-read your orignial post 4 times now and am getting a much better understanding. Just wanted to let you know your hard work is appreciated and well-worth it. You should make a video explaining your points so i could watch that too!

Not likely: Rameka hasn't been on this site in years.

Originally Posted by discgolfcrazy

lol i thought i had it right this time, i even looked it over, affect

The way to remember:
Affect is a verb, verbs = Action.
Effect is a noun.