FlashFlight Illuminated Flying Disc

A group of friends have recently started playing Ultimate Frisbee on Thursday evenings (ok, I know it should just be called Ultimate since Frisbee is a trademark and flying disc is the proper trademarked term, but frisbee is much more recognizable to my audience). If you are not familiar with Ultimate, it is pretty much like football played with a frisbee except that it is non-contact and you have to stop when you catch the disc. Check out these 10 Simple Rules for Ultimate for a more detailed explanation. It is a great sport and also good exercise. I highly recommend checking it out (if you are in Mobile, come join us on Thursdays, otherwise look for a league here: Ultimate Players Association).

So I was reading Brian Battjer’s photoblog site (warning some content NSFW) and ran across this entry about his trip to Japan (man that guy has a wild life). In that entry (Ctrl-F for frisbee) he shows off his illuminated flying disc from FlashFlight. After seeing this I knew I must have one, so I popped over to their online store and ordered up this combo

of their red illuminated disc and their plain white Ultimate disc. A bargain at $27 plus shipping (which was $6 to Mobile).

I received the discs a couple of weeks ago and I must say they are absolutely incredible. The illuminated disc is powered by a watch type battery and light is provided from an LED. The interesting part is that there are fiber optic lines that run to the edge of the disc so that all of the disc’s surface get lit up. It comes in many different colors with the red getting the longest battery life (150 hours!!). At night the light up disc looks like a little flying red UFO when thrown. It is a great fun to throw and very entertaining at outdoor parties. It is also incredibly durable. No matter how many times I said don’t throw the disc in the pool because I’m not sure what will happen, it of course ended up in the pool. 3 or 4 times actually. And guess what….nothing happened. It kept on glowing and did not end up electrocuting anyone in the pool. When I got home that night I removed the battery and let it dry out, and it is still going strong. For you purists, their illuminated disc is 185 grams which is 10 grams heavier than the regulation disc but it flies great. It actually flies better than regulation in the wind due to the increased weight.

The plain white ultimate disc (regulation 175 grams) is also a great disc. We used it at our last game and other than my complete lack of talent in all things frisbee-related it performed flawlessly. It is also extremely durable. Teddy spent an entire afternoon (sorry Teddy 🙂 ) the other weekend trying to see how many times he could skip it off of the asphalt with errant flicks or nosedive it straight into the pavement from 30,000 feet with flawed hammer throws and other than lots of nicks and scrapes it still flies great.

So, run don’t walk to their site and see if there is room for a FlashFlight disc in your life. You will not be sorry.

Of course the real question is whether my light up disc will make it through airport security next month when I head out to California to see Brian and Rob. After reading tales like this, I wonder.