User:Pedant/Rusty Harding

Former content of now-deleted article Rusty Harding

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Rusty Harding, born Richard Harding Englert, is known as "The Boomerang Engineer" by members of the boomerang sport and collecting community.

Rusty Harding's boomerangs are highly prized by collectors and many of them have grown more valuable with the passing of time. Some of his designs -- such as the "Harding Hurricane Hook" -- have been purchased by boomerang competitors for use in competition. He has created boomerangs in a variety of shapes including the traditional, delta, vee, hat, and hook shapes, as well as in the shape of every letter of the Roman alphabet, tomahawk, and pocketknife shapes.

Family

Rusty Harding is the father of the American artist Glenn.

Quotes

"When you're into boomerangs, it transports you into an interim world, where world problems and stresses of normal life do not exist. How long you stay in this world, and what you get out of the experience is up to you. Make the best of it!"

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Former content of now-deleted article Boomerang engineer

A boomerang engineer is a person who designs intricate versions of boomerangs, the throwing stick used by Indigenous Australians, which are composed of two or more wings, or arms. These wings are airfoil shapes and as such are subject to a fairly well-known set of aerodynamic forces and effects.

According to aerospace engineer Rusty Harding ("the Boomerang Engineer"), there are more aerodynamic variables involved in one flight of one boomerang than there were in a flight to the moon and back.

A boomerang engineer's task, then, is to manipulate and juggle these variables to produce new flying objects, with short flights, long flights, high flights, unusually-shaped flights and more. Because several of the forces acting on a boomerang have effectively infinite variations, boomerangs can take on an infinity of shapes, sizes, and flight patterns.

Returning boomerangs have been produced, for instance, in the shape of every letter of the alphabet, in the shape of many animals, as Uncle Sam, a Swiss Army knife, Native American tomahawk... the list is probably endless.

The sport of boomeranging requires various types of flight patterns for different events, ranging from the 'fast catch' event - which requires a middle-distance boomerang with an almost circular orbit and fast return flight, (well under 4 seconds), to the 'MTA' (maximum time aloft) which is extremely light and asymmetrical, is thrown almost straight upward, fluttering back to earth slowly, staying aloft for several minutes, if successfully thrown.

Without boomerang engineering, a boomerang would just be a "stick" - the boomerang engineer's term for a boomerang that needs adjustment to its aerodynamic design...from the familiar riddle: "What do you call a boomerang that won't come back?"