"Free Flight" Model Testing

Imagine yourself holding a paper airplane model that you made. Now move your arm back and launch it into flight.

How did you make it?

How does it fly?

Can you make it fly better?

These were the questions Mrs. Dukerich asked us. We had to make a paper airplane and then use what we learned in our wind tunnel testing to make it fly. Below is everything we found out to make a paper airplane fly. When we finished we designed our own planes and had a paper airplane race. It was alot of fun.

Our first assignment was to build a paper airplane. These are the directions:

Fold a sheet of typing or zerox paper down the center. (Diagram #1)

Fold back the upper part of the paper inward to make a pointed nose. (Diagram #2)

Make a second inward fold, meeting at the center of the fold. (Diagram #3)

The wings are made by carefully folding the upper edge down the bottom line of the fuselage. (Diagram #4)

After you have made your paper airplane, this is what you must do next:

Find the Center of Gravity by turning the airplane upside down and balancing the airplane on you index finger. Staple the two sides of the fuselage together, just ahead of the center of gravity. (Diagram #6)

Make the cuts in the back of the paper airplane using a pair of scissors, at the Elevons". Make sure you do not cut them off. They should move up and down. (Diagram #5)

Now try some of our moves:

Very carefully bend the elevons, one up and one down. Let's try a roll. Ready! Throw the airplane. Notice how it corkscrews through the air. This is a roll and the airplane is rotating around the longitudinal axis. (Diagram #6)

Next, bend the elevons even with the wing, then bend each elevon up just a little bit, making the bend as even as possible. Ready? Throw it again. The little airplane will fly away from you and then, almost like magic, its nose will pitch upward. Notice that the airplane does not keep flying up, it eventually drops to the floor, which is known as a stall.
Bend the elevons even with the wing again. Take the scissors again, and cut a rudder in the back, similar to the elevons. (Diagram #5) This is located on the back of the fuselage. Move the rudder to either side, you get to choose. Ready? Throw the airplane a few times. Notice that the airplane wants to pull its nose to the same side as the fold. Flying to the right or left is a demonstration of yaw.

We next made a runway on the floor of our classroom, using masking tape. We stood back 10 to 15 feet and tried to make our airplane land on the runway. This was alot of fun, but we had to try it a few times, to get it to land in a straight line.