[Question] beat in discs, drag, and dimples

[txmxer]

in one of the physics of flight threads someone related the idea of a beat in disc to golf ball dimples.

This makes sense to me. A beat in disc may act a bit like the dimples on a golf ball and reduce drag on the disc resulting in a more understable flight pattern. Basically, for a given air speed, the disc will tend to follow the flight pattern as if it was thrown a little faster.

To that end, has anyone ever tried to create a dimpled disc? Meaning a factory mold with dimples just to see how it would affect flight?

Or has anyone been curious enough to butcher a disc at home with a drill bit?

Could produce some interesting results.

 

[wims]

Latitude 64's Missilen and Raketen have a hex shaped dimple pattern

 

[txmxer]

Latitude 64's Missilen and Raketen have a hex shaped dimple pattern

guess whatever they were trying to accomplish didn't work out as both are out of production.

Listed as 15 speed and rim widths of 24 and 25 mm.

Had to zoom in on the picture to max to see the pattern--very tiny bumps all across the rim and dome.

https://www.latitude64.se/products/discs/distance-drivers/missilen/

I'm thinking along the lines of dimples similar in size to a golf ball. Surely one of the disc companies has tried this. Must have been a failure.

 

[wims]

Quest had a couple of discs with dimples as well. They had a lot of weird discs in general

 

[coupe]

It's been tried multiple times over the years. Gateway, for example, made a dimpled disc (Screaming DT) back in the mid-2000s. Flew like an understable turd.

There's a reason they haven't caught on.

 

[txmxer]

It's been tried multiple times over the years. Gateway, for example, made a dimpled disc (Screaming DT) back in the mid-2000s. Flew like an understable turd.

There's a reason they haven't caught on.

Har! Thanks got the info.

 

[Twmccoy]

Raketen

guess whatever they were trying to accomplish didn't work out as both are out of production.

Listed as 15 speed and rim widths of 24 and 25 mm.

Had to zoom in on the picture to max to see the pattern--very tiny bumps all across the rim and dome.

https://www.latitude64.se/products/discs/distance-drivers/missilen/

I'm thinking along the lines of dimples similar in size to a golf ball. Surely one of the disc companies has tried this. Must have been a failure.

I've thrown 3 Raketens. I won't call that disc a failure at all. I don't know why it wasn't popular, but Raketens fly great. IMO, its like a better Ballista. Somewhat flippy with lots of glide and speed.

The Missilen I wasn't big on. Super fast, overstable, and glideless.

I don't know if the dimple pattern really helps with anything, but the Raketen is a big time understable bomber.

 

[Moose33]

Millilen had the same problem a lot of discs in that class end up having, they aren't understable enough to glide well for the masses, and they are HSS enough to be really good for forehand. I had one and at 70% power it flew pretty good. 400-420 forehand with a late hard fade. Turn that up to 80-90% and it had a hard time staying anywhere near the right line.

 

[Casey 1988]

in one of the physics of flight threads someone related the idea of a beat in disc to golf ball dimples.

This makes sense to me. A beat in disc may act a bit like the dimples on a golf ball and reduce drag on the disc resulting in a more understable flight pattern. Basically, for a given air speed, the disc will tend to follow the flight pattern as if it was thrown a little faster.

To that end, has anyone ever tried to create a dimpled disc? Meaning a factory mold with dimples just to see how it would affect flight?

Or has anyone been curious enough to butcher a disc at home with a drill bit?

Could produce some interesting results.

OOP Quest AT had the T-Bone with a dimple pattern only on the wing top plate and bottom wing part. They tried to in mid 2010's make the discs again in some kind of cheap Champion/Z style plastic probably from old Grove discs and had an attempt to make a Legal Turbo Putter II.

OOP Destiny Discs made a Full Golf ball dimpled disc that would almost dry out over time getting stiffer and stiffer as the disc aged. The company stopped making discs when they kept getting discs bans on some molds for overweight beyond 175 gram discs that were of the, small 21 cm discs. They stopped putting weights on the bottom of the discs sometime in 1990's to try and beat this but PDGA caught on

Then Discraft had the Impact as a Cross hatching that seemed to if disc was kept from picking up large amounts of dirt used to make a mold that would have been Foxbat US to be more like a Wombat/Skeeter in flight. The more popular not oop disc the Glide is using a mid sized bead and Z plastic to keep the disc from being so US and more down the middle.

 

[swhite]

Quest Defender

 

[swhite]

The Gateway Ninja doesn't have dimples, but has a rougher surface along the wing.


I couldn't find a good closeup picture of a Ninja wing. But, the one, below, has a smooth flight plate, and courser textured wing.

 

[txmxer]

Sounds like there is potential in the concept, but maybe not enough to be production worthy?

 

[Dr. Bogey]

I have a Quest TBone. It has dimples like the Quest Defender does, but only on the underside of the rim. The top of the rim is textured just like the Ninja. It's a perfectly good stable fairway, flies a lot like a fresh DX Teebird.

 

[Dthunderchicken]

Gateway produced the Diablo DT (DT=Dimple Technology). I had one that was very temperamental.

EDIT Discraft Impact had crosshatching too.

 

[bombproof]

Here is two with dimples right here... I can't remember how these fly anymore but I know I was a big fan of the inferno for shear uncontrolled distance.

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[Casey 1988]

It's been tried multiple times over the years. Gateway, for example, made a dimpled disc (Screaming DT) back in the mid-2000s. Flew like an understable turd.

There's a reason they haven't caught on.

Those were made for Gateway by Quest AT with the old company before it moved from St. Louis area to northern Illinois and made discs in crappy version of a Champion/Z plastic.

The production stamps said so on the discs.

 

[Vic Rattlehead]

I'll second that comment about the Inferno. It was absolutely amazing for uncontrolled distance.

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