In article .com,
"Robert M. Gary" wrote:


The turning of the frisbee mostly produces 'stability', that is the
spinning keeps the frisbee level in flight due to the 'gyroscopic'
effect, i.e. any spinning disc likes to stay spinning at the same
angle.

You can see for yourself that the spinning has nothing to do with the
actual 'flying' of the frisbee by noting that you can spin a frisbee in
place, on a stick or whatever, and it will not 'lift up'. You also can
see that the frisbee is still spinning at nearly 'full speed' when it
finally hits the ground, so you have another piece of evidence that
shows that the spinning doesn't lift the frisbee."

And, the "soft frisbees" that are sold in pet stores, and that fly quite
well, consist of a thick and quite heavy but soft tubular ring around
the outer perimeter (it's the size of your thumb or larger, and almost
feels as if it had sand in it), and then just a thin piece of plastic-y
cloth like a saggy drumhead across it.

Because of the weight of the outer ring, you can put a good spin on it
when you launch it, at which point the "drumhead" takes up an upward
dome shape, and it maintains that shape and spin throughout its entire
flight.

As another data point, a sudden gust of wind coming head-on at it can
make it suddenly "jump" vertically upward by a sizable amount -- and a
gust from behind can make it suddenly drop, even "crash-land".

So, the physics of this seems to hold up . . .