I recently ran across
this article about Takao Doi's on-orbit boomerang toss, and the interesting results. My college roommates and I used to have long arguments about why boomerangs fly and the effects that actually cause them to return to the thrower. We argued endlessly about whether the dominant factors were from the aerodynamic effects, the rotating off-center center-of-mass, the relentless pull of gravity on the J-shaped trajectory, etc, etc, etc. Every argument was invariably followed by a very-late-Friday-night experiment in the apartment parking lot, several off-target throws, missed catches as we stood too close to the neighbors cars, broken car windows, car alarms going off, running away as the security patrol came around, etc, etc, etc.
Anyway, it does seem that this experiment indicates that the returning flight path of a boomerang is caused by dynamic CG-effects alone. If the boomerang does not require gravity to fly properly (since the zero-gravity effects do not impact the flight of the boomerang) then the lift effects of the rotating blades must also be excluded. Any thoughts?
-dave
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