How This Guy Became a World Champion Boomerang Thrower

[drum music]

In order to be a great boomerang thrower

you have to be a scientist, you have to be an

inventor, you have to be a craftsman, and you get

to wear all these different hats,

in order to become a great athlete in sport.

My name's Logan Broadbent, and I'm a member

of the world champion US boomerang team.

[Narrator] Broadbent is one of the best

boomerang throwers in the world.

When I tell people I'm on the US boomerang team,

the first thing that comes to their mind is what?

We have a US boomerang team, you've got to be kidding right?

But its true, and we've had the chance to travel

all over the world throwing and catching boomerangs.

[grinder spinning]

[Narrator] It takes a lot to do well in this sport.

From making custom gear, to understanding the science

behind boomerang flight.

Mastering all this lets competitors succeed in events

designed to test specific skills like speed,

accuracy and distance.

There's even one event that judges

how long the boomerang stays in the air.

And another called trick catch and doubling.

We actually throw two boomerangs at once

and you have to catch them behind the back,

under the legs, with your feet, I do all sorts

of different catches to earn points.

So I've actually been throwing boomerangs

since before I could walk, and its because

my dad was involved in the sport for years

and years before me.

He was one of the earliest competitors in the sport

of boomerangs, even from a young age

I was going to different tournaments with him,

learning the different events,

becoming pretty good pretty early.

[Narrator] At age 14 Broadbent was the youngest

person ever to join the Us boomerang team.

Since then they've picked up three

world championship titles, and Broadbent currently

ranks second in the world as an individual.

He also holds the US record for distance.

177 yards all the way out with the full return

177 yards back.

[Narrator] And he's one of the few boomerang throwers

in the world, that can do this incredible move.

So back flip catch we don't actually have to do

in competition, I just think its fun to do

especially in a crowd or for my friends.

[Narrator] But its not just about fun.

Competitors need to understand how boomerangs fly

to do well in the sport.

So there's actually a lot of physical principles

that are operating on a boomerang in flight.

So what makes a boomerang come back includes

gyroscopic perception, differential lifts,

centrifugal force, momentum of inertia,

angular momentum, and torque.

Okay, so basically the best way to think of it is

that each wing is an airplane wing,

and this airfoil allows the boomerang

to generate lift, but a boomerang

is thrown vertically so the direction of lift

is to the side unlike an airplane

flying horizontal where the directional lift is

up in the air.

So you throw it nice and vertical, straight up and down

it'll curve around and come back,

and whether it's a two wing boomerang, like the

traditional ones that we think of,

or three wing boomerang, they're both

operating off the exact same principles of flight.

[Narrator] Getting as good as Broadbent

takes time and practice, but the first step

is mastering a basic throw.

So all boomerangs in the world are thrown

straight up and down nice and vertical.

You always want the top side of the boomerang

facing you.

That's the side with the airfoil

it's also the side that's painted,

and if you're a right handed thrower

you want the wind hitting your left cheek

coming across from left to right.

If your a left handed thrower you'll actually be

throwing with the wind coming from right to left.

Typically I will pinch grip the boomerang,

so I'll use my thumb and index finger to hold it

this way.

Sometimes you'll wrap the front finger around the boomerang

if you need to get a little bit more power

or a little more grip, but there's really no wrong way

to do it as long as you are throwing it nice and vertical

straight out in front of you,

you don't have throw it high,

you don't have to throw it low,

vertical's probably the most important part.

[Narrator] Competitive boomerang throwing

may not be a well known sport but,

there are a few things most people do know about boomerangs.

They come from Australia and they were used as weapons,

except that's not exactly true.

So the returning boomerang was

never actually used as a weapon.

What was used as a weapon by the Aborigines called

a Kylie, it was much larger and heavier

than a typical returning boomerang, and it would travel

in a straight line, so almost like

an aerodynamic baseball bat that was used

to bring down game.

There were civilizations all over the world

that had throw sticks.

King Tut's tomb in Egypt had throw sticks.

The Hopi Indians of the southwest had throw sticks.

There's all these different examples of throw sticks

being used before we invented bows and arrows

and other forms of weaponry, but the

returning boomerang was never actually used to hit anything.

[boomerang trills]

So you may think what's so difficult about boomerangs?

Right?

I mean you're just throwing and catching in the same place.

Well it actually involves a lot of athleticism to be able

to throw and catch boomerang consistently

and in the different ways we have to do it in competition.

[Narrator] Especially considering

how fast the boomerangs fly.

They're moving anywhere from 80 to 90 miles per hour

when they're leaving your hand, and then

they're coming back a little bit slower,

maybe slowing down to 60 miles per hour

by the time you're catching it.

[Narrator] And they fly in all sorts

of conditions even the simplest catches require

a surprising amount of skill and physical stamina.

Often times it's windy so it does require

a little bit of running around and being able

to react to changes in the flight.

Boomerang throwers tend to be very agile,

they tend to be very quick, they tend to be

able to react quickly to changes.

As boomerang competitors, we're not able to

practice every single day.

It would just be way to much wear and tear

on our shoulders and in our elbows,

so we have to do a lot of cross training to stay fit.

[Narrator] Which gives Broadbent an advantage.

I'm actually an endurance athlete by trade

I do marathons, I do triathlons,

I also am big in the obstacle course racing scene,

which is another fast growing sport.

But all of those things, help contribute to

making me a much better boomerang competitor.

[Narrator] But athleticism isn't all it takes

to be a great boomerang thrower.

The ability to adjust for different

conditions is important as well.

Every single event requires a different type of Boomerang,

but what's also important to remember

is that we're up against Mother Nature.

A little wind.

Let's wait for that to slow down for a sec.

So when the winds are kicking up or if it's raining,

or if you're at a higher altitude

you need to think about how that's going to affect the

flight of the boomerang.

[Narrator] Which means the right gear

is critical.

So critical in fact that competitive boomerang throwers

don't actually buy their gear off the shelf,

So what's uniques about our sport is that we

actually make the equipment that we use in competition.

So many of my boomerangs where either made by me

or many were made by my teammates as well.

If you're able to make good boomerangs

that work really well in different conditions,

then that gives you a bit of an edge.

So the one thing you'll notice about all of my boomerangs,

is that they're super bright colors.

It's almost like they're straight out of the 80s.

Maybe like those MC Hammer pants that my parents

used to wear.

But what's important about that is,

these need to be visible in flight,

so I need to be able to identify these

quickly and easily especially if they

get caught in the sun.

So they are super bright, super bright colors

some of them aren't that pretty, but sometimes

the ugliest boomerangs actually fly the best,

and that's important to remember

as a competitor.

[Narrator] Getting a competitive edge in this sport

takes a lot of boomerangs.

Broadbent carries almost a hundred different kinds

in his competition kit.

All of these are made for different events,

and they're made for different weather conditions.

So I have three bladed boomerangs, two bladed boomerangs,

even four wing boomerangs, depending on the event,

and they're all made out of different kinds of materials.

So boomerang technology has actually come a really long way.

When most people think of a boomerang,

they think of a two winged almost -v shaped type

of boomerang, something a little more traditional,

we can still throw these and they work really really well

but now we still make boomerangs out of Birch aircraft grade

plywood.

This actually has lead weights embedded

in the tips of each to get it to go over 50 meters out.

We have a glass infused nylons, different types of

plasting materials, PET, Polypropylene,

all sorts of different plastic.

We use phenolic materials.

These are doublers for trick catch.

We'll have sheet carbon fiber, which is

a very rigid material, but still very lightweight

so that makes for a really nice boomerang,

and we even make composite Maximum Time Aloft

boomerangs, so these are made out of

micro balloons and epoxy, covered in

carbon and Kevlar fibers.

So they're really ultra light but still very rigid

and they're made to stay in the air as long as possible.

[boomerang trills]

some of the boomerangs I throw make a really

cool sound when they leave my hand,

and that's because a lot of them actually have holes

and different types of slots built in

to the boomerangs to create drag

and it makes some really amazing sounds.

[boomerang whistles]

[Narrator] Understanding the physics behind

boomerang flight is key in competition.

As boomerang competitors, the more that we

understand the physics and aerodynamics happening

and how to modify your boomerangs to get them

to operate the way we want them to operate,

the bigger the advantage we have in competition.

[Narrator] Throwers modify their gear

adding materials like tape, rubber bands,

and coins to get their boomerangs to fly just right.

If I want to add drag, to help slow down

the spin rate, and higher wind conditions,

I may add a couple rubber bands on there.

If I want a little more weight to get it

to go further, to stay more vertical in flight,

or even to lay out quicker, I have pennies

on each one of these wings.

Not only does it depend what your putting on the boomerang,

but where it's placed also plays an important

roll in the boomerangs flight.

Often times we'll even tune our boomerangs

so we may even twist a wing giving it

more angle of attack which is going to shorten

the range, or we may twist negative angle

of attack getting it to fly further.

If we bend it up the boomerang will fly higher,

if we bend a wing down it'll fly lower in flight.

So understanding all of those different things,

obviously leads to being a better competitor.

[upbeat drum music]

The one thing that I love about boomerangs

is they can be a metaphor for life,

what goes around comes around,

throw good out you'll get good back.

If your a good person, good citizen, then good things

can happen to you.