Quote :

"Walter Fredrick Morrison, who at 17 sent the lid of a popcorn tin skimming through the air of a California backyard and as an adult remade the lid in plastic, in the process inventing the simple, elegant flying disc known today as the Frisbee, died Tuesday at his home in Monroe, Utah. He was 90. The cause was cancer, said Phil Kennedy, the author with Mr. Morrison of “Flat Flip Flies Straight: True Origins of the Frisbee”(Wormhole Publishers, 2006). Beloved of man and dog, the Frisbee has for more than half a century been the signature product of Wham-O, a toy and sporting-goods manufacturer based in Emeryville, Calif. The company has sold more than 200 million of the discs since acquiring the rights to Mr. Morrison’s Pluto Platter, as it was then known, in 1957. . . . In World War II, Mr. Morrison flew P-47 fighter-bombers in Europe, increasing his knowledge of aerodynamics. Returning to Los Angeles after the war, he worked as a carpenter, in his spare time putting his flying disc through successive refinements. In 1948, he and a partner, Warren Franscioni, manufactured the Flyin-Saucer, the first plastic flying disc. It sold fitfully, and the two men parted company in 1950. The Pluto Platter was Mr. Morrison’s most refined disc. Flat and round, it had a raised central hub, with the names of the planets in raised plastic around the rim. The instructions, molded into the underside, were written by Lu Morrison and read like a Zen koan: Play catch — Invent Games To Fly, Flip Away Backhanded Flat Flip Flies Straight Tilted Flip Curves — Experiment! Mr. Morrison was awarded United States patent No. 183,626 for his “Flying Toy” in 1958. In 1967, Ed Headrick Wham-O’s head of research and development, patented alterations to the disc’s shape that improved its aerodynamic ability, resulting in the familiar Frisbee of today."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/13/us/13morrison.html

2/14/2010 8:42:06 PM

He met his ultimate ending.

2/14/2010 8:43:22 PM

2/14/2010 8:44:12 PM

Quote :

"He met his ultimate ending."

Nice and sad. I would go out and toss in his honor but it's still too damn cold.

2/14/2010 8:52:55 PM

Quote :

"He met his ultimate ending."

clever


^^ On another topic, that Fort was part of the 91st bomb group, which sustained higher casualties than any other heavy bomber group in the war.

2/15/2010 9:00:18 AM