Wham-O Frisbee patentedIn 1967, a patent was issued to the Wham-O Mfg. Co. for their improvement of the Frisbee (U.S. No. 3,359,678) - an “aerodynamic toy to be thrown through the air … in throwing games.” It was described as a saucer shaped throwing implement with a series of concentric discontinuities adjacent the rim on its convex side. These molded rings were designed to provide “an interfering effect on the airflow over the implement and create a turbulent unseparated boundary layer over the top of the implement reducing aerodynamic drag.” The name began when William Russel Frisbie founded the Frisbie Pie Company in (1895). In 1948 the innovator Fred Morrison saw the students working there tossing empty pie forms to each other in their lunch break. |