Noob question

[shyamrox]

Is there a difference between a disc being a "straight shot" versus a disc being "stable"? I always thought these two meant the same thing

someone wrote something that is making me think otherwise: "the hornet is stable and the buzz is more of a str8 shot"

 

[Frank Delicious]

stable gets used to mean overstable a lot.

 

[Apothecary]

agreed. "stable" is an ambiguous term when it comes to disc flight characteristic talk.

overstable-neutral-understable is a much clearer way to describe overall disc flight.

 

[shyamrox]

Thanks for clarifying!

 

[Ryan C]

Overstable and understable are terms that are a sort of meaningless. I really think we should just talk about discs being more stable and less stable (high speed). Overstable is how a disc will fly if you don't have enough power for it to fly straight. Understable is how a disc will fly if you exceed the power it requires to fly straight. The problem is that not everyone has the same power, so understable and overstable lose most of their meaning.

Even a nice shiny new teebird would flip if it could be thrown hard enough. To me, the only way of talking about discs that has any meaning would be to say if it is more or less high speed stable than another disc. All talk about disc stability is relative.

Typically, a straight disc is a disc that has the right amount of stability to fly straight for most people (at different power levels).

 

[Frank Delicious]

Overstable and understable are valid terms to use b/c they are an easy way to convey disc flight. Some discs are legit overstable and some discs are legit understable. There is nothing wrong with using those terms. Like if someone asks for an overstable fairway driver, you know not to recommend a roadrunner or dx leopard.

 

[Ryan C]

Well that's of course true. But its more useful to know how hard someone can throw, and then recommend a disc that is the correct stability to achieve the desired flight. Cyclones were rather overstable for me when I first started, but now they flip up slightly and finish very straight for me.

I think you can use overstable and understable casually, but if I really wanted to get an idea of how a disc flies, I'd ask someone to say if it was more or less stable than a similar disc that I already knew. Even someone with exceptionally shitty form will still very likely be able to say if it flew more stable or less stable than a teebird, for example. If some dude on the internet tells me that its "understable," that basically tells me nothing.

 

[Frank Delicious]

Well if you read most of the threads here people usually ask what someone throws, how it flies and how far it goes so I think we are already there.

 

[Frank Delicious]

This reminds me, should I start the Noob Question Megathread over there?

 

[Apothecary]

megathreads suck. too much wading makes it such a pain to find any good answers.

and i sort of agree with ryan. there are more acute ways to describe disc flight (HSS and LSS being the pertinent descriptors).

but a lot of times that confuses people who arent in-the-know. over-neutral-under is comprehendable to a much larger audience. when making generalizations about disc flight, its the clearest way to put it.

 

[Frank Delicious]

No I agree it isn't the best way to describe discs but it is useful shorthand (like you said).