Effects that makes the disc fly
If you’re interested in getting a glimpse into what actually makes your discs soar through the air, then you’re more than welcome to join and dive into the wonderful world of disc and the effects that makes the game so much more fun and challenging. To explain the wide array of terms can be a challenge of itself, so we hope that we can shed the light on the disc sport in an easy way.
01
Starting Anew
The production of discs has for a long time focused trying to replicate how the wing of a plane most seamlessly flies through the air, but we’ve found some discrepancies in this design, that can negatively impact the discs during flight. A lot of adjustments and tweaks has been made to the golf discs in the past 40 years, but the form hasn’t been reimagined since then, the newer designs have tried to compensate and diminish the problems, rather than rethinking the form.
That’s where we come in, with our patented disc design that take it a step further.
We’ve looked at the discs anew, they may look quite similar at first glance to other discs, but our design pivots off a whole other concept. We’ve found that a disc doesn’t fly like a disc wing, but it’s a gyro, meaning that our shape of the disc is symmetrical, and the arc is tangent, meaning that it’ll fly easier, and will be easier to control.
​
It can sometimes be hard to get a grasp on what actually makes a disc fly, since there are a lot of different takes on the subject and that can cause a lot of confusion, that’s why we’ll try to tell you a little about the different theories and effects that affects a disc’s flight during its airtime. And how we’re able to optimize our discs due to our unique rim shape.
02
Aerodynamics
We have to get the basics in place first, before we can get into all the nerdy and convoluted stuff.
So, let’s start off with aerodynamics, it’s a term that explain the interaction between air and the objects that move through it. Put into the context of the disc sports, it means that the aerodynamics directly affects its performance and efficiency. Friction between the disc and the air can reduce the disc’s rotation and speed through the air. A smoother, more aerodynamic disc will experience less friction and therefore be able to move through the air more efficiently.
Gravity is also an effect that affects the discs. Since gravity pulls all objects towards the center of the earth, meaning that it works against the discs lift force, which will cause the disc to fall towards the ground.
The lift coefficient is a key factor that determine how a disc generates lift. A principle that’s pivotal for disc flight is the Bernoulli’s principle, which can help one understand how a disc generates lift. The principle explains how a difference in the air pressure around a golf disc can generate lift: If the air moves faster over the disc than under it, the air pressure is lower on the top than on the bottom, creating lift.
​
Now another important factor is the angle that a disc is thrown, or the ‘angle of attack’. What we mean by that is the angle between the disc’s thrown orientation, (Hyzer, Anhyzer or Flat) and its direction of travel is important. At higher angles of attack, the disc can generate more lift, but only up to a certain point. The points is the correlation between the discs height and orientation when thrown over a terrain, beyond this point, called the stall, the lift rapidly decreases, while the drag increases.
The lift coefficient is a dimensionless number that encapsulates the lift characteristics of the disc, depending on factors like the disc’s shape, its orientation and the roughness of its surface.
03
Drag (Air resistance)
Drag is a force that counteracts the disc’s motion through the air. The magnitude of drag depends on many factors, including the golf disc's shape and size, its speed, its orientation relative to the airflow and the nature of the boundary layer of air next to the disc’s surface. A smoother and more streamlined disc will generally experience less drag than a bulky or uneven one.
04
Gyroscopic Effect, Angular Velocity and Precession
The Gyroscopic Effect in relation to a disc is a principle explaining how it will conserve its angular momentum. A rotating disc will inherently continue to rotate until an external force affects it. The continuous rotation, or angular velocity, provides stability in the disc’s flight, helps it resist changes in orientation and maintain its flight path. A higher angular velocity, more rotation, can contribute to a greater gyroscopic effect and will influence how the disc responds to changes in its orientation and trajectory. However, this can also lead to an effect known as precession, where an external force, such as the wind, will affect the discs and cause it to rotate, or “precess”, 90 degree in the direction of the force.
This means that the distribution of the dics’s weight in its outer diameter can massively impact the gyroscopic effect and angular velocity. This means that by placing more of the disc’s weight in its outer diameter, the gyroscopic effect and angular velocity can be increased, leading it to be better to maintain the golf dics’s rotation and stability over a longer period of time, which is a great advantage to have during the flight. The moment of inertia, or the disc’s resistance to changes in its rotation, plays a significant role in this context, meaning that with a high moment of inertia it provides more stability during flight.
05
Magnus Effect
The Magnus effect is a physical phenomenon that occurs when a fluid, such as air, flows around a spinning object like a disc. This effect contributes to the disc’s flight behaviour, influcing its lift, drag and trajectory.
Meaning that the Magnus effect introduces a force perpendicular to the direction of the disc’s velocity. This force can help stabilize the disc during flight by counteracting undesired changes in its tilt angle, making it better at maintaining a consistent trajectory. The stability is achieved due to the pressure difference that is created on the disc’s sides as a result of its rotation
Furthermore the Magnus effect also contributes to the disc’s curving flight or turn. Depending on the direction and speed of the disc’s spin, the Magnus effect can cause the disc to turn or veer to the left or right during its flight, giving the players more control of the disc.
The Magnus effect is affected by the gyroscopic effect that can alter the discs orientation in the air, when the rotation is applied. Meaning that understand and learning how to use the Magnus effect can give a massive improvement to a players game, since it can provide a valuable insight into controlling and optimizing your golf disc’s performance and flight trajectory.