Boomerang: Spirit (ABS)
Manufacturer: Adam Carroll (realboomerangs.com)
Charles reviewed the Spirit last month. Having had more time to play with this boomerang, I decided to post my own review as a supplement to his. I hope the video and experiences I have collected provide some additional perspectives to how it looks and performs in the air.
Overview & Physical Characteristics
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| From phnxhawk's Boomerang Collection |
The Spirit I recently added to my collection comes from Adam Carroll. Using a hook type of planform, the standard Spirit, made of a different plastic, is advertised to have a range of about 50 meters with a teardrop-shaped flight path. As with Charles' Spirit, mine is crafted from ABS, which seems a little more dense and stiff than the standard plastic material. This Spirit, weighing in at 51 g, has a weight and overall size like that of my Mozzie. In the future, I would like to compare the weight of the standard Spirit to its ABS cousin.
As you can see in the above picture, the paint scheme on my Spirit is of the abstract type that Adam is known to apply, using alternating bands of dark purple and lighter blues. This can make it difficult to pick out against the sky in the videos, but it tends to stay quite visible in person.
The Throw & Flight
Throwing at the park with Charles, I frequently obtained the advertised teardrop flight path. There, I was throwing hard with some layover--perhaps something like 10 or 15 degrees. I was also aiming to throw roughly 45 degrees off-wind and at about eye level or slightly higher. Without wind or with a light breeze, this would cause the Spirit to start low and quickly rise high in the outbound legs, diving back down on the return arc of the teardrop. In a severe calm, the boomerang would often stop short, giving out and circling its way down a few yards ahead.
At the beach, where the wind tends to be a little stronger and steadier, I was frequently able to coax the boomerang into a more rounded, elliptical flight path. In the video clips above, I would guess the winds were blowing somewhere between 5 and 8 mph. We were also marking the Spirit at around 45 yards in range, a little shy of the expected 50 meters (about 55 yards). Again, I would throw about 45 degrees off-wind and aim to throw just above eye level. For these clips, I was applying a "medium" strength throw for me--firm, but somewhat light, especially compared to some of the heftier G12 boomerangs I have been throwing lately. In terms of layover, I found that a small amount, 5 to 10 degrees tended to work best for my strength of throw and release height.
Throwing in this fashion would allow me to obtain flights in which the boomerang stays fairly low and level throughout return, rising a little higher as it completed the turn back to me. On the return leg, the boomerang would "put on the brakes" and drop back to my feet or into my hands for an easy catch. In these types of returns, the Spirit would exhibit some hover--not as pronounced as with some of my omega type booms, but enough to make catches easier on the hands.
What might I change about how I use the boomerang in the future? To get up to the advertised range, I expect I would need to do some tuning to both the boomerang and my throw. I might try to reduce wing dihedral and incidence angles on the tip combined with a low or level, hard throw. For the moment, however, I have been spoiled by the ease of the throw and return as it is currently tuned.
Summary
The Spirit is a fun addition to my collection, working reasonably well in calm and light winds and, although not ideal, remains somewhat manageable in medium winds (say, 7 to 10 mph). As it takes a harder throw and can be a little sensitive to how it is released, I might place this in the intermediate class of 'rang. Depending on the wind conditions, it may take some additional work to decipher how to throw and tune it best for the desired flight pattern. A light wind is generally preferable to round out the flight into a more elliptical pattern. So far, this has been a great addition to my boom bag, and I look forward to additional throwing sessions with it in hand.
Links
Interested in picking up your own Spirit? Check out these links:
- realboomerangs.com Catalog Page
- Spirit ABS at theboomerangman.com
- Spirit ABS at flight-toys.com Catalog Page
"Putting my spin on boomerangs..."
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