Page "Flying disc" Paragraph 6

Walter Frederick Morrison discovered a market for the modern-day flying disc in 1938 when he and future wife Lucile were offered US25 cents for a cake pan that they were tossing back and forth to each other on the beach in Santa Monica, California.

" That got the wheels turning, because you could buy a cake pan for 5 cents, and if people on the beach were willing to pay a quarter for it, well, there was a business ," Morrison told The Virginian-Pilot newspaper in 2007.

They continued their business until World War II, when he served in the Army Air Force, flying a P-47s and spent time as a prisoner of war.

Returning from the war, Morrison sketched a design for an aerodynamically-improved flying disc that he called the Whirlo-Way.

By 1948, after design modifications and experimentation with several prototypes, Morrison and business partner Warren Franscioni began producing the first plastic discs, renamin it the Flyin-Saucer in the wake of reported unidentified-flying-object sightings.

" We worked fairs, demonstrating it ", Morrison told the Virginian-Pilot.

" That's where we learned we could sell these things, because people ate them up were enthusiastic about them.

" Morrison and Franscioni ended their partnership in 1950.

After further design refinements in 1955, Morrison began producing a new disc, which he called the Pluto Platter.

He sold the rights to Wham-O on January 23, 1957 ( his 37th birthday ), and the following year, Morrison was awarded U. S. Design Patent D183, 626 for his flying disc.