How fast are discs thrown?

[Daffron24]

What is the average/top speed of a forehand/backhand throw??

 

[apdrvya]

find a cop with a speed gun. hide anything illegal (sorry if you didn't get this part first). Ask the officer nicely to check the speed of your throw.
/thread

 

[Raptor]

500mph

 

[apdrvya]

500mph

uh, light speed?

 

[Chiefstang]

Find one of those roadside speed signs and rip a few discs at it.

 

[apdrvya]

^^this.. and call me first, I want to put it on youtube...

 

[shane8002]

That would cool haha there's by my house but its a busy street of course

 

[ZBoazMobster]

I caught up to, and rear-ended a car on a 45mph road. So... I'd like to assume I was doing near or at 60ish.

 

[cyberspace wrangler]

if a baseball pitchers can throw 90-100mph i figure a strong disc arm could do the same. Mine throws are prob. 55mph

 

[ChainMan]

The consensus here seems to be in the seventies http://discgolfer.ning.com/forum/topics/how-fast-can-you-throw?commentId=1809917%3AComment%3A2243095

 

[captain jack]

Vibram posts MPH speed ratings for thier discs.
These are the first real numbers I have seen published by a manufacturer.

 

[CwAlbino]

For the average thrower it'll be 50's to 60's. High 60's and up for the big guns.

 

[chickenonabun]

That would be really great if more companies mad flight charts like vibrams, with actual statistics to base their ratings on. The only thing is people would need to figure out how hard they can throw (assuming OAT free i suppose) to see if they can throw a certain disc with enough speed.

Also, does that mean if you threw a Vp @ 60 mph it would only go 250 feet because its so awfully overstable, but if you threw a higher speed driver at that speed you'd get drasticially more disctance, like 500 or something?

Another thing is how did they decide the "ideal" mph speed for each disc anyways? It doesn't make sense that a putter's is higher than a fairway driver.

 

[Daffron24]

Yea I'm not sure if the Vibram chart is what the perfect speed would be to drive that distance or they figure that is the max speed. I really doubt it's the max speed b/c obviously some people can throw harder than others. I wonder what the correlation between throwing a baseball and driving a disc, because I threw a baseball mid-upper 80's but my furthest throw was about 435' on flat land and some big arm guys throw 500-600. Maybe I just need to work on technique

 

[garublador]

For the average thrower it'll be 50's to 60's. High 60's and up for the big guns.

That seems high to me for the "average" thrower. From what I understand, Blink is not the average thrower.

IIRC, when Bradley did the video of him throwing with that speedometer he was getting in the mid to upper 50's with Rocs and throwing them in the 350' range. Based on that I'd guess most people are struggling to break 50mph.

I also think I remember a discussion somewhere about the Jarvis brothers and how they were two of the biggest guns at the time but they were "only" throwing in the mid 50's which was noticeably slower than the rest of the big guns at the time.

I'm not sure what good Vibram's numbers really are. Most people have a way to measure how far they throw (football fields are pretty abundant in the US) but not very many have a way to measure how fast they're really throwing. Sure it's an interesting number, but IMO not a very useful one. Some evidence of that is the rating they choose to show on their "ratings" page. Blink's 63mph throw with a Rhyno was probably at least 330'-350'. That same throw with their disc would only go 265'. I'm not sure what the use is in a disc that's that much shorter than a Rhyno.

 

[grodney]

I borrowed a gun and we measured some in Des Moines once upon a time. Low 60s were common. Lighter discs were easier (duh) to throw faster. Stokely was visiting and broke 70 a few times.

I now own a radar gun. Sadly, it doesn't pick up discs very well.

Ex-commissioner Theo Pozzy did a speed (vs distance) study a 10 years ago. His results were published, probably in DGWN. He sent me the full spreadsheet of his study. Here are highlights, re-posted without his permission, so hopefully he won't sue me. All credit to him.

Fastest throws per division per person:

Division Name Speed (MPH) Event
Open Men Chris Voigt 82 Field of Dreams
Open Men Jack 78 Field of Dreams
Open Men Christian Sandstrum 77 Worlds 2000
Open Men Randy 77 Field of Dreams
Open Men Lane Mason 74 Windy River Open
Open Men Scott Stokely 74 Field of Dreams
Open Men Ed Doppelmayr 73 Ft. Steilacoom Open
Open Men Ken Jarvis 72 Ft. Steilacoom Open
Open Men Steve Rico 72 Ft. Steilacoom Open
Open Men Barry Schultz 71 Ft. Steilacoom Open
Open Men Mark Kilmer 71 Windy River Open
Open Men Shorty 71 Field of Dreams
Masters Men Robert Wilson 63 Ft. Steilacoom Open
Masters Men Glen Whitlock 62 Ft. Steilacoom Open
Open Women Ruth Steele 54 Worlds 2000
Open Women Ellen Hollub 51 Ft. Steilacoom Open
Adv Men Toby Henderson 75 Windy River Open
Adv Men George Harrison 72 Ft. Steilacoom Open
Adv Masters Men Don Richter 56 Ft. Steilacoom Open
Adv Masters Men Rick Buttle 53 Ft. Steilacoom Open
Adv Women Leann Traver 44 Windy River Open
Int Men Jeremy Art 63 Ft. Steilacoom Open
Int Men Chase Sparling-Beckley 61 Windy River Open
Int Women Jean Papa 41 Souper Bowl
Novice Men Gowan Stern 46 Souper Bowl
Junior < 16 Men Ryan Jones 57 Windy River Open
Junior < 16 Men Jami Willman 54 Windy River Open
Junior < 12 Men Zane Sporleder 52 Ft. Steilacoom Open
Junior < 12 Men Tyler Smith 50 Ft. Steilacoom Open


Raw data of fastest throws and the distance they went:


Speed Distance
82 600
82 444
81 522
79 540
78 615
78 558
78 495
77 549
77 483
77 411
77 405
76 627
76 585
76 411
75 594
75 573
75 537
75 507
74 597
74 546
74 501
74 459
74 426
74 399
74 342
74 318
73 549
73 540
73 528
73 363
72 564
72 549
72 507
72 480
72 405
72 363
71 567
71 477
71 438
71 411
71 351
71 351
71 312
70 510
70 432
70 399
70 369

 

[Karl]

Since the thread's name is "how fast are discs thrown", I won't write about "a disc's distance a/o a disc's potential distance" (unless proded ) but there's no question that the overhand throwing motion should generate the fastest disc speed regarding its initial velocity (sometimes spoken of as its "muzzle velocity").

If someone who could throw a baseball (weight ~145g) at 90mph, there's really no reason why someone couldn't throw - using the same throwing mechanics - a disc (weight ~110-180g) about the same speed (at least the throwing implement's muzzle velocity would be the same).

After that, each implement's speed "tails off" due to air resistence. And none of this take into account anything about glide (or lack thereof)!

Karl

 

[grodney]

The chart of speed vs distance is certainly most dense in the 50-65 mph range, and the 250-400 ft range.

For fun, here are the slowest throws that went over 500 ft. Honestly, I think you have to question the validity of the first couple.


Speed Distance
48 528
49 540
54 516
56 567
60 546
61 552
61 549
61 540
62 573
62 546
62 546
63 555
63 513
65 609
65 528
65 513

 

[grodney]

The best fit through the data worked out to about DISTANCE = (SPEED * 6.9) - 44

So if you get AVERAGE distance from your throws, you can guess about how fast you're throwing based on how far your AVERAGE throws go.


40 232
45 266.5
50 301
55 335.5
60 370
65 404.5
70 439
75 473.5

If you're an average thrower (regarding how much distance you get for your speed), and you throw about 300, then you're probably throwing about 50 mph.


10 years of disc technology has perhaps changed this some. I personally wouldn't guess it has changed much, but others may disagree.

((SPEED * 7) - 50 gives almost identical results, and is easier to remember)

 

[grodney]

Here's an interesting chart. Shows average distance and speed, per division. Sorry Theo!!!! Great stuff.


Division Entrants Throws AvgDistance AvgSpeed
Open Men 49 266 425 63
Masters Men 6 15 294 54
Open Women 4 15 270 47
Adv Men 33 104 299 55
Adv Masters Men 3 6 245 52
Adv Women 1 3 222 41
Int Men 15 41 289 51
Int Women 1 2 155 40
Novice Men 1 1 210 46
Junior < 16 Men 6 18 206 45
Junior < 12 Men 3 7 238 43