On this day in (engineering) history…
The frisbee goes on sale for the first time
It is a Wednesday in January 1957, the 23rd to be exact, - there is snow on the ground with more on the way. But in the nation’s toy stores, there is something to get everyone looking forward to lazy, happy days in summer. A new toy, that looks like a flying-saucer has just appeared on the shelves. Its inventor used to call it the ‘Pluto Platter’. Next year, the
Wham-O toy company (has there ever been a better named toy maker?) call it the ‘Frisbee’. Will it ever catch on?
Walter Frederick Morrison promoting his Pluto Platters
Like so many stories, this one doesn’t begin where everyone thinks it does. Back in 1937, 17-year-old Walter Frederick Morrison, from Richfield, Utah and his girlfriend Lucile Nay (Lu, to her friends) were having fun throwing a popcorn plate from one to the other. It was fun, and it worked ok, but they decided a cake tin would have more stability in the air and go further.
The next year they were on the beach, when the couple was approached by a stranger who offered them a quarter (25 cents) for the flying tin. Cake tins back then only cost 5 cents, and Walter immediately noticed a business opportunity.
Walter returned from the war (he had been a pilot) looking to manufacture his new idea. As a carpenter and, later, a building engineer in California, he was well suited to solving technical problems. He worked on the disc’s design, tweaking it to get a longer, more stable flight. Sales was something else he had a talent for, taking his ‘Whirlo-Way’ (by now rechristened the ‘Flyin-Saucer’ before settling on the ‘Pluto Platter, to cash in on the UFO craze’) to fairgrounds to demonstrate the Pluto Platter’s excellent flight. This is where Wham-O caught sight of the new toy.
By the 1950s, the idea of flinging flying cake tins was widely popular, but the name was ignored.
It’s generally accepted that flying cake tins were not a new phenomenon, that it goes back to the 19th century. On the east coast, among ivy league college students, the tin of choice came from the defunct Frisbie Pie Co. out of Connecticut, which embossed ‘Frisbie Pies’ on their tins.
When Wham-O bought the rights from Walter, they looked for a better name and ‘Frisbie’ or ‘Frisbee’ was a natural choice. It was further improved by a company designer, called Erd Headrick, who patented a new frisbee in 1967, with a band of concentric ridges to further stabilise its flight.
The frisbee is believed to have sold 200 million units becoming familiar around the world.
Although Walter didn’t stop inventing, he never quite hit the same heights again. While he took a strong dislike to the name ‘Frisbee’, he did change his mind in later years, becoming rich on the royalties.
He died on February 9th, 2010, at home in Monroe, Utah.
By the way, Walter and Lucille Nay, later married and divorced. Twice.
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Without giving it an engine, what could be done to make the frisbee fly even further?
What would it take to make a frisbee-like plane? Could it out perform what we have now?
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Stephen Phillips is a Content Producer at the IET, with passions for history, engineering, tech and the sciences.