I don’t know why this question popped in my head, but here it goes: what is the “best” possible design for a paper airplane by the criteria of distance-flown and/or time in the air? I’ll qualify the question with the restriction that the airplane must be constructed from a standard sheet of typing paper.
Thanks,
-oliver-
http://www.recordholders.org/en/links.html
http://teacher.scholastic.com/paperairplane/
20.9 secs, by a pair of Brits looks like the record.
No offense to surfing the net with kids, but I have a design that will kick the ass of that thing. Bear with me:
Take 1 sheet of paper (8 x 11) and fold diagonally into a kind of triangle with a chunck out of the top. From the bottom fold a half inch section up, repeat three or four times. The triangle should now have a chunck out of the top and tabs on the sides. Insert one tab into the other, with the folds on the outside of the circle.
I know what you’re thinking: “Beeblebrox, why did you have me make a freakin’ paper hat?”. Hold on, I haven’t taught you how to throw it. Gently grasp the chunk-out-of-the-triangle part of the plane with the middle three fingers. The middle finger should be on the inside - knuckle toward the center, and the other two fingers on the outside of the crown. Raise the plane up to your ear. Bring your arm down and gently let go of the craft. The thing has more lift than any design I’ve ever seen
By standard typing paper, I take this to mean 8½" x 11", right? Also, I assume this will be thrown on level ground. That is to say, you won’t be on top of a building, or at the edge of a cliff. Can tape, paper clips, staples, scissors, etc. be used?
If not, I have a design that might fit your description of “best.” I’ll try to explain the folding as best I can.
Fold the paper in half down the 11" dimension. Next, fold the two upper corners in at a 45° angle, so that they meet the crease in the middle. Then, fold each side again, using the crease as a guide. The two sides must be very even. It is critical for maximum hang time.
Now, the tip that has formed as a result of the corners being folded in, fold that tip over, so it lines up with the pointy tip where the other folds have met in the middle (now instead of a pointy tip, you have a flat tip). Then, fold the paper in half, and press it flat.
Next, fold a crease on each wing, outward. The crease should be about ¾" in length. Now a place to hold the plane must be made. Fold each wing over on itself about half the length of the flat tip. Then straigten it out (make it look paper airplane-ish), and that’s it.
We had to do this in physics some odd years ago. This is how the winner’s plane was done. It seemed to be the best, under the circumstances. YMMV.
As a little kid, I got a copy of the Scientific American Great American Paper Plane book. This book was documentation of a competition that established the first scientific records in paper airplane flying. I practiced and practiced some of the designs, and some of them are quite excellent. But my favorite one was just a margin note in the book. There was a picture of a paper airplane model of the Wright Flyer, the first self-propelled aircraft by Wilbur & Orville Wright. I noticed the model was made of graph paper, so I painstakingly counted all the squares, measured out the pieces on a sheet of graph paper, and put it together. And indeed, it did fly, but only about as well as the original Wright Flyer did, which is to say, it flies poorly but stably.
Anyone else try this? I think I need better directions, cause I don’t get it.
Similar in design to this one except one would make the fold along the corners first instead of down the middle.
There was “paper airplane” thread on the board almost exactly a year ago to the day. Here was my post from that thread, which you might find amusing:
Oooh, oooh, oooh! My favorite paper airplane story…
Somewhere, someone sponsors an annual paper plane contest held inside a huge, unobstructed gymnasium. (Can’t say if it’s Scientific American’s contest or not, but probably is.) The rules limit the materials to a handful of conventional items like paper, tape, and glue. Naturally, one of the most covetted prizes is for distance covered.
While the aeronautical engineers who compete take the contest somewhat seriously, many planes come from kids and amateurs, giving the event a homey, informal tone. In that spirit, the sponsors accept mail-in entries from people who can not attend in person. These planes usually come packed in shoe boxes with instructions, like “hold 2 inches from front when launching,” which the judges do their best to comply with.
Anyway, several years back they received a mail-in entry which consisted of nothing more than a tightly wadded ball of paper, wrapped in Scotch tape and dipped in glue. The accompanying instructions read simply: “Throw very, very hard.”
Needless to say it put the judges in quite an embarrassing spot when this entry won the distance title. However, a hastily convened conference enabled the sponsors to save face. The judges decided to disqualify the flying paper sphere on the grounds that the entry did not technically “fly”; it was a projectile, not a glider, they concluded.
My first post so I hope this works. I understand the plane being described and have taken some digital photos (5) with a camera which should help explain the design. I do not have a place on the web to store photos but would be willing to email them to someone that can.
Ok, I put the pictures up, for the airplane that NoSubstitute made, they can be accesses from here for the next couple of months. (Say, until Christmas, or so.)
“The ephemeral and the eternal are the same.” ~ Gordon Dickson ~
last week i attended the national championship game for high school football: de la salle vs. long beach poly
my point is that the game became so boring during the second half, that everyone in the crowd started launching paper airplanes.
mine was by far the best … and stayed in the air the LONGEST … but how the hell am i supposed to explain!?
OLIVER, if you REALLY want to know i will email you detailed instructions, this one will not fail you ;D
Thanks for making the photos available.
The photo for step 3 shows only one fold but you will need to put in another couple of folds to build up leading edge strength.
The photo for step 4 shows the curve put into the paper by holding the two ends of the fold and running the paper over the edge of a desk. If you do not do this the plane will probably not be nice and round.
I used to have an Aerobie that came with a booklet which included the ring’s history and instructions on how to make a “paper” Aerobie. The Aerobie people had entered one into the above contest and set a distance record, but was ultimately disqualified for being made of cardboard and not paper.
Alright, so I got this crazy plane design to fly. But it doesn’t fly particularly well. Its almost perfectly round and it flies pretty straight for a while and then its straight down from there. I throw harder but it flies just as crappy. I don’t think I’m doing anything wrong because the plane looks exactly like the pics. Did you test that thing out when you took pics? I tried flipping it inside out and outside in.
I don’t even know why I want to get this to work so badly either.
After I built the plane it flew about 15 feet in my living room. You can apply some “up” elevator to the tail but the real trick is the properly release. You need to hold the plane with two fingers on top and the thumb below at the tail and swing your forearm down from pointing straight up in the air while holding your elbow at shoulder height gently. Do not force the plane to fly simply let it carry forward from your hand.
Sounds like it’s stalling. If it is going along and slows down and slows down and then dives toward the ground, it’s stalling. Redo the plane with more weight in the front (add more folds, or something.) Once you have the balance right, the plane should glide along at a constant speed.
You should not have to throw this hard, but just kind of tug it along and let go, it’s a pretty stable design.
I used to have a book on paper aeroplanes which had a design called the “paperang”. As the name suggests, it was a boomerang shape, or a flying wing. It was beautiful to fly. It flew slowly (which I like in a paper plane), and had quite a long range. The way it was folded gave the wing a definite airfoil shape which no doubt contributed to its superior ability. The absence of a keel enabled it to make full use of “ground effect” -this is a type of last minute lift a wing will have when in close proximity to the ground. The only drawback was that because it had no vertical stabilizing surfaces, it relied on good balance in construction, so the folds needed to be very accurate.
I have one too and was going to relate the same story. I believe it could easily set the record, too – the full rubber version of the ring kicked some serious aerodynamic butt. It flew very well, usually a lot more than intended or expected…that (plus being a ring) made it a tree magnet, but hey. I still have mine, but the rubber is too brittle now to survive an impact. US patents 4,560,358 & 4,456,265. Neat toy, loads of fun. Frisbee on steroids.
Speaking of flying rings, my favorite “paper-airplane” contraption has always been a piece of paper folded into a broad tube. Launch like a football…with proper construction it’ll do pretty well. Usually won’t get as much air as a proper glider but it will do so a lot more accurately.