How does altitude affect the flight of my disc?

[mashnut]

Discs don't fly as far in cold air. There's a hole at my local course that's 415' an it's pretty easy for me to reach now that it's hot and humid. In the winter it requires a much harder throw to get it all the way there. It seems like the discs fly slower and more overstable with less glide. And after reading the Inbounds article, I see why. I'll have to try less stable discs in the cold....the only problem with that is it's usually windy in the winter.

It's always tough to figure out how much of that distance loss in cold weather is due to aerodynamics and how much is due to constricting clothing, poor footing if there's snow or ice, and cold less flexible muscles.

 

[Druid]

This article;
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/weather/wdensity.htm
Explains more about air density, how and why factors such as humidity, elevation and temperature affect the flight of a baseball and an airplane. Interesting stuff.

It seems I just need to throw lower in the winter and higher in the summer.

 

[Druid]

Poor footing and bulky clothing definately rob me of distance at times, but I've tried the same throw on a cleared teepad in just a shirt after warming up and there's still a difference. I always thought of the winter flight of discs as sluggish.

One thing that's confusing me though: a few pages back someone was saying their discs flew overstable at high altitude and everyone was throwing sidearm because the discs wouldn't turn over. Less air resistance makes the discs less stable though, not more. Perhaps the discs spin faster with lower air density, making them fly with greater HSS and less LSS?