  Flying Gyroscopes are fascinating flight objects, which, due to gyroscopic
stabilization, can achieve surprisingly long flight distances when thrown with
rapid spin. The most common example hereby is a traditional Frisbee disc. This
paper focuses on a similar object called X-Zylo, that shows a remarkable
straight flight despite its simple geometry. The main aim of the present study
is to investigate the flight behavior of the X-Zylo and to build a reliable
groundwork for further quantitative parameter studies on ring wing
configurations. To achieve this goal, a six degree of freedom model to predict
the flight trajectory was developed. The trajectory computation uses
interpolated high-fidelity CFD simulation data to calculate the acting moments
and forces on the object during flight. A launch contraption was built to be
able to validate the theory systematically and reproducible in experiments
without human factors involved in the launch. Despite the complexity of the
flight, the theoretical simulations match the real world data qualitatively,
however quantitative differences still prevail. The investigation shows that
the deviation between theory and experiment mostly stems from uncertainties in
the CFD data as well as the optical recording of the experimental data. Despite
the methods outperforming those of prior studies, advancements still have to be
made in those areas in order to obtain better quantitative accordance between
theory and experiment.
