Paper Airplane Designs
Comments
I am not even sure how to search for it, even with this database in hands
Many, many hours of my youth were spent making paper airplanes and flying them. I also enjoyed modifying designs with my own embellishments to see if my changes were improvements or no.
Perhaps after catching "The Birdmen" (1971) on TV I became obsessed with building catapult-like paper airplane launchers using thread, paper clips and weights to drag the airplanes along the length of the kitchen table and send them sailing off the end.
I think part of this was due to a lack of toys to entertain myself with (my sister and I, growing up with a single mother who worked as a secretary — she stole office products so that I was kept in letter-size paper, pencils, pens). Perhaps too there were a lot of those months spent indoors in the either too-cold or too-hot/humid Midwest.
Another destructive game we used to play was lighting army men on fire and fusing their melted plastic bodies together to create a zombie army of plastic amalgamations. Half-green, half-tan grenadiers with bazookas for a heads, etc. God bless America!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDiC9iMcWTc
The simple flight path in the video does not relly do it justice. When you throw it outside, it will have a beautiful loooong curved flight. When there is some wind, it often goes to explore the sky for quite a while before it comes back down again.
If anybody knows a design that can compete with this one, I would be very interested to try it!
The Great International Paper Airplane Book
Paper Airplane Designs (2013) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32134691 - July 2022 (96 comments)
Paper Airplane Designs - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29466325 - Dec 2021 (8 comments)
Wake Turbulence from a Paper Airplane (2020) [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27137827 - May 2021 (29 comments)
Paper Airplane Designs - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23545860 - June 2020 (8 comments)
Paper Airplane Designs - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18249755 - Oct 2018 (206 comments)
Designing, folding, and flying the finest paper airplanes [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16784941 - April 2018 (11 comments)
Learn How to Fold a World-Record-Setting Paper Airplane - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16715728 - March 2018 (14 comments)
Real Paper Airplane Designs - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12632253 - Oct 2016 (1 comment)
The best paper airplane in the world - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=420523 - Jan 2009 (30 comments)
you get some really good distance if you throw it like a (american) football, managed to clear a couple city blocks once, thrown on a hot dry day from a high floor at school...
Many years later, I was taking an aerodynamics course at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University taught by Bob Sweginnis (died in plane crash, while practicing aerobatics), who dedicated an entire class to a paper airplane contest. The winning criteria was “plane that stays in the air the longest wins”.
My plane came in second - I designed it to make an easy curve through the bungalow to maximise air time, and Bob Sweginnis did an excellent job launching it. He stopped the timer when my plane hit the wall of the bungalow, with plenty of altitude to spare.
The winner? A sheet of paper, basically, that pendulumed to the green carpet in a swinging motion, like a leaf, about a second slower than it took my Mona Lisa to commit suicide.
[Research]: http://www.nobuyuki-umetani.com/publication/2014_sigg_pterom...
A whole bunch of fun things you can make with stuff lying around.
I think the site is gone, I can't find it anymore. It had a blue background and about 10-20 designs available for download. It was either German, Swiss, Austrian, Italian or French, but I'm pretty sure it had multiple Languages.
Anyways, I found something very similar: http://www.zovirl.com/paper-airplanes/
This design scheme was consistently among the best (not on the website above directly): http://www.10paperairplanes.com/how-to-make-paper-airplanes/...
You could also just do what I did and just fold only the top over itself, and use a bit of the back wing for the winglets, folded out. Tiny, tiny grip, enough to hold, deeper in the back than the front for stability, tiny y in the wings and winglets going out slightly. The wings need to make a y when you drop it in the air (you can simulate this while holding this so you don't mess up your shot at a perfect first flight!). Make sure to fold the front extraordinarily tightly. Otherwise it starts to tank.
Then it's a matter of how hard you launch it. As a child, I was getting shockingly long flight times, and on those special days where there was a breeze...oh boy. What a world.
Super stable, super easy to make, super easy to teach, the hardest part is the arm, the patience to keep trying, the luck that it doesn't catch in a tree, and the patience to adjust the winglets for a nice little spiral.
A lovely part of my engineering days as a child, definitely helped get the creative juices going for this field! I had a white trash bag at one point with all of these novel little designs I came up with just for funsies. :)))) :D :)))) <3
Yeah, I know, the internet made me lazy.
Longest Distance: https://www.foldnfly.com/32.html#The-Bird Longest Time Aloft: https://www.foldnfly.com/43.html#Stealth-Glider
It’s a great kick start for kids to inspire their inner maker. It has just ten designs, well laid out with good instructions.