A boomerang is quite a sophisticated device-it uses gyroscopic motion and aerodynamic lift, to return to the launch point.
Suppose you were an aeronautics expert, and were given the job of designing one-how long would it take?
Amazing that this was developed by aboriginal tribesmen-of course, they had a lot of time on their hands.
Do I know what a boomerang is? Can I get my hands on one to reverse-engineer it? Or am I just given a list of requirements (“single piece of material, thrown from the hand, flies a certain way and returns to the thrower”)?
Step 1: Eat a pie
Step 2: Clean the pan
Step 3: Throw it, angled up and slightly tilted
You’ve invented the Frisbee, not the boomerang…
Your aeronautical engineer might actually invent it faster if forgets he is one, and just experiments with throwing sticks like primitive people did. Wikis take on this sounds reasonable:
Discovering this feature of a certain shape of stick doesn’t require an understanding of why it works. It’s the concepts of gyroscopic motion and aerodynamic lift that are sophisticated, not the fabrication of a bent stick.
it fits aerodave’s requirements though. nothing about it being L-shaped
Do Frisbees return to the thrower? That’s among his requirements.
If you throw them right. Same as a boomerang.
A Frisbee (or more generally, flying disc) doesn’t return to the thrower.
They dynamics of a returning boomerang are actually relatively simple and can be characterized with closed form calculations (though characterizing the response of the aerofoil might require experimental testing). You basically need it to be aerodynamically stable with a point at which the yaw will cause it to experience a large arm (causing it to turn back on its path), go back to a stable orientation, and return in a long arc toward the thrower. If an engineer were to design one from bare requirements I suspect it would be more symmetrical than the traditional two arm design, but other than that, it wouldn’t take that much effort. A good undergraduate engineering project would be about the level of effort.
Stranger
Something I’ve always wanted to know about a boomerang:
Is it a myth or is it fact that people actually hunted with these things? I can’t imagine actually catching one. A friend of mine came back from vacation in Australia and gave a bunch of us boomerangs. I went to a big open park and threw it a few times. As soon as it was coming back I ran for my life. I learned two things, 1) it’s hard to aim, and 2) I didn’t want to be within 20 feet of it on it’s way back.
Only if you throw them into the wind, or nearly straight up. The Frisbee and similar flying discs lack an imbalance to produce an arm that causes it to yaw and return.
Hunting boomerangs were actually more akin to throwing sticks, and didn’t return. Returning boomerangs were more typically used for flushing game. Capturing a boomerang isn’t that hard, but you actually capture it flatwise, trapping between both hands, rather than by grabbing the arm as depicted on film.
Stranger
This just isn’t true. It’s quite easy to throw a disc into the air so that it stalls and returns along more or less the same course that you threw it. It doesn’t depend on the wind, or being straight up; I’ve done it to distances of at least 50 feet.
You are correct that a standard frisbee will not return by changing course in a more-or-less horizontal circle. However, one that did so could be probably designed fairly easily. Discs spin, and there is an imbalance of lift caused by the spin – the edge moving into the wind produces more lift, producing a rolling motion, plus there are precession effects to deal with as well, which cause the roll to be converted into a yawing turn. With the right combination of spin stability and speed, you could likely get one to glide in a complete circle.
For an example, look at the Aerobie boomerang. It’s a closed triangle shape, and symmetrical, so it returns more like a flying disc or ring would than a standard boomerang.
Funny, I used to do it all the time when I was a kid with my glow-in-the-dark frisbee. Looked awesome at night. I guess since it’s impossible, it must have been the LSD my mother put in my mac-and-cheese.
Boomerangs only return if you throw them just right also.
Wind affects boomerangs too, though granted not as much, butfrisbees can be thrown out quite a ways in an angle similar to a boomerangs and come back.