The above question can be answered at some level for the Bugs Bunnys of the world! And the answer is: Yes, indeed, plenty. Here is a little story anent our marvellous aptitude for development with time. The original discus, as used in the first Greek Olympics, was quite clever, and actually went further than anyone could throw a sphere. It s range was about 65 m, still close to the modern Olympic record. In 1961, as a low speed aerodynam icist at Caltech, I worked with some characters from Whammo on a funny looking plastic dish, that we called Frisbee and guessed we might sell a few 1000. We were off by a few million on that market prediction!
The latest disc variant, called Aerobie, holds the record range of more than 300 m, as listed in Guinness. It is appealing to note that this is comfortably the furth est any object ha s evah been thrown by the hand of Man! We are now working on improving this. There are a few factors: air density: unchangeable, gyroscopic precession: invariant, at least according to Newton, human musculature:slowly improving: and disc design: improving by leaps and bounds. I am familiar with this since I have been involved in this stuff for 40 years, and have been invited to give a paper next S ummer at an International Symposium in Vienna on my latest efforts on disc design and flight dynamics prediction. So I see lotsa new things , Bugs. And they do not reside in verbiage , but, in this case, in an axisymmetric plastic disc that you can pick up in your hands, hurl and see with your own eyes wheth er it is any better! Not "Words, words, words," as my Lord Hamlet complained ! But reality - if that means anything! Peter Lissaman, Da Vinci Ventures Expertise is not knowing everything, but knowing what to look for. 1454 Miracerros Loop South, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505,USA tel:(505)983-7728
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