What's the easiest one that does reliable loops?
Probably the Spin Plane. I've built similar to this and it loops a bunch.
Paper Airplane Designs
91–100 of 218 posts
Re: Paper Airplane Designs
#92Question: there is a "rule" separating "no cuts" from others, let's call it a purity class. Is "no arbitrary folds" also an established purity class? When I was a kid with too much paper at my disposal, arbitrary folds felt like chatting. Arbitrary folds would be any fold not defined by either a side or existing fold aligning with another side or existing fold or by a corner aligning with another corner. Many intermediate folds would be done just as guidelines for layer folds, and four the structural effect they would have after getting undone. A bit like the "only lines and circles, no measurements" rule in geometry.
Re: Paper Airplane Designs
#93Since this is going to be a great pass time for geekids, wanted to throw in a few resources for completeness: Windtunnel to test: https://www.instructables.com/id/Paper-aeroplane-wind-tunnel... Project form: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project... Another page with slightly different features: https://www.origamiway.com/paper-airplanes.shtml
> Since this is going to be a great pass time I thought this was a fantastic eggcorn[1], until I realized that it is the actualy origin of the word 'pastime'. So, it sort of is, but isn't at the same time. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggcorn
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Re: Paper Airplane Designs
#94I would like to promote what I think is the ultimate source of this kind: The Greatest Paper Airplanes[1], a virtual interactive encyclopedia for Windows 3.1 Of course, you can use it in the browser these days[1]. It goes through basics and history of flight, basics of paper folding, and gives you dozens of interactive, animated, step-by-step designs. Loved it as a kid, and was thrilled to see it preserved online. [1…
thanks for sharing this - the animated step-by-step is very nice and especially useful if you're following any kind of complicated design
Re: Paper Airplane Designs
#95Suprisingly enough, this collection doesn't seem have the design most common & popular in Russia, roughly this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrsxMqvHXkw .
I was looking for that one too. I think I learned to fold it in middle school. It is one of the best performers that is relatively easy to fold.
Re: Paper Airplane Designs
#96Re: Paper Airplane Designs
#97I found this design many many years ago, and it's always been my favourite for aesthetics: http://www.members.tripod.com/~Yesitsme2/paperdc3.html
Re: Paper Airplane Designs
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
I did the same in elementary school, I made my own plane design after many iterations of a/b testing. It won pretty much every airplane contest. No tape, pennies, or paperclips needed, they actually reduced the overall distance if the center of mass was too close to the tip. When thrown you had to keep the wings folded down unlike a traditional plane. Basically I made a dart. You didn't have to be good at throwing ei…
I'm interested! Maybe you could document it (drawing, video, whatever)?
Here I took pictures of the build
I tested it out a few times. It actually sucks. I can't help but see all the flaws this plane has many years later. It only flies up to ~50 to 100feet max indoors which is kinda of awful (world record indoors is 226feet). Once it hits peak pivotal height it just nosedives straight to the ground. Most top tier plane designs have a gliding mechanism on the apex point, mine doesn't.
It doesn't really work exactly at a 45* arc either. Its closer to something less optimal at maybe ~35 to 40* for longer distance to prevent nosediving.
I always thought this plane was really good. I remember when I had my first airplane competition at elementary school, everyone had shitty airplane designs. This plane went from one end to the classroom to another (25 feet), slamming hard into the wall. Classmates were shocked it performed so well, and it was definitely a headturner as it didn't look like a plane.
I think I may have overestimated how good this plane is. Its not really, its mechanically a poor design. It must have just been my imagination b/c I didn't know any better at the time (dunning kruger effect). And had validation in small size competitions. Plus I was shorter back then and things seemed bigger
Re: Paper Airplane Designs
#99This is one I grew up with (as the dart & square plane alternative). If you fold the winglets as the instructions, you end up with an aerobatic plane. If you instead just gently bend the plane in half along the center line (so it looks somewhat arc-shaped), you get a pretty reliable glider. https://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-make-an-aerobatic-pa...
As a kid, I only knew the basic design and the square. I almost always used the square, which I learned with two differences from the description on the website: I folded up the outer ~0.5-1cm of the wings as "winglets" (which seemed to help stability) and folded in a triangle of varying size in the back of the fuselage for trim instead of cutting ailerons into the wings.
On a windy day in the vortices behind trees at my elementary school bus stop, I had such a square glide for what felt like at least half a minute (unreliable narrator obviously) after launching to maybe 3-4 meters. That lucky random walk wouldn't have worked without the low sink rate of a good square.
Re: Paper Airplane Designs
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, apologies. He burnt the paper and then picked one of the ashes as his "plane" His finger never touched the plane after it took "flight" just pointed to it from the side so that everyone could follow the "flight path." Some classmates were upset, I was just impressed.
Ah, I'm guessing time aloft was the metric?
"Time of flight" only the definition of flight was something like unpowered and untethered off the ground. So floating slowly to the ground becomes "flight" by the definition of the rules.