Quote:
Originally Posted by bullseyediscgolf
Dave,
MY THEORY: I'm not sure he's right. If he was right, then a "hook" or concave shaped disc like a Firebird or Teebird should be understable. Understable discs like the Stingray and RoadRunner should then have a hooked or convex edge to simulate what happens when the edge of the disc is bent toward the bottom of the disc.
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No... I think Adler's right. I'm not sure why you think the concave wing should "simulate" what happens when the disc is bent towards the bottom exactly... It's not about that. It's about how the air flows over it, not about the curvature.
Lay a firebird down on a table next to a Roadrunner (or better yet a Katana.) The edge of the firebird is so much higher that you can actually slide a Katana UNDERNEATH the firebird without picking it up.
Like I said, it's not so much about the curvature of the wing. It's about how much air is flowing over the top, vs. the bottom of the disc and how much drag it causes.
I'd always wondered why some of my Buzzzs were more stable than others even though they mostly looked the same. Some of my Buzzzs that started out really stable were completely beat to crap and had some high speed turn would retain their fade. After I read the Adler article I layed them all on a table and looked at the height to the edge. If you put them in order of edge height, it was the same as stability order. 100% accurate predictor.
I do think he's not quite right about the surface features though. Discs with scratched up surfaces definitely have less HSS, but LSS seems mostly unaffected. I know this because I've taken a DX Leopard thrown it, scratched it with a rock, thrown it, scratched it with a rock, etc... and watched it develop high speed turn over the course of 20 minutes.