Board Thread:General Nerf discussion/@comment-30372652-20170517112046/@comment-31417650-20170519111250

Elliottw wrote: "Glass ceiling" refers to the optimum, or rather maximum RPMs at which flywheels can turn before you start to see a decrease in performance.

Let's imaging this little thought experiment. The flywheels are turning, the dart is in the chamber, and you pull the trigger. The dart enters the flywheel cage and one of two things might happen.

Scenario one: the flywheels are moving too slow. They catch the tip of the dart and start to bog down almost immediately as they drag the dart through the flywheel cage. There's just not enough power to ever reach its maximum potential velocity. So sad.

Scenario two: the flywheels are moving too fast. As they catch the tip of the dart they start skidding along the outside edge, kinda like a dragster at the starting line. Most of the power is wasted on friction and the dart never even reaches its maximum potential velocity.

Somewhere in-between is the Goldilocks Zone. The flywheels are moving fast enough to transfer the maximum amount of energy to the dart without wasting a whole lot on extraneous friction. That's the glass ceiling. Any more RPMs, and the muzzle velocity actually decreases.

Does that make sense ? Ah. That makes sense indeed. Some day I need to save up enough money to just rewire and lipo something.