Best Paper Airplane Design?

[Knowledge_Seeker]

Today i was trying to design a paper airplane that could acheive the most distance and speed. But i feel like im wasting paper and my tests are invalid. Do you have any personal designs?

I tried to incorporate some of the flying principals into it but i wasnt really sure how.

Do any of you know anything about aeronautics or anything about flying at all? Please; feel free to share your wisdom...:think:

[Candy]

Joseph Palmer's Paper Airplanes (http://www.josephpalmer.com/planes/Airplane.shtml)
Inspired by Ken Blackburn.

Ken Blackburn - Guinness record for time aloft for paper airplanes (http://www.paperplane.org/)
Surf around his site, it’s interesting.

Simple design by Ken (http://www.paperplane.org/Patterns/sample.html)
He uses paper clips.

[Candy]

Patterns submitted to Ken Blackburn (http://www.paperplane.org/Patterns/patterns_submitted.html)
It looks like Yahoo deleted some of the designs.

[LurchGS]

there are some fascinating designs... my favorite is a simple tube - about 40 cm long, with a 10 cm hoop-wing at the front, and a 20 cm hoop wing at the rear. very very stable, flies a long way

[Knowledge_Seeker]

thanx a lot

[Nicolas]

Optimizing for both speed and distance is a bit strange to me. Firstly speed. That depends on how hard you throw it of course. And if you don't count vertical speed (in that case, throwing a stone would result in a fast aircraft :)), speed and distance seem to be very interlinked. The less speed you loose, the more lift you can generate to stay aloft and the further you'll go while aloft.

You must find an optimum between generating lift and minimum drag. In the optimum situation, you have enough lift to stay at the same altitude at a speed close to (but below) throwing speed, and drag is minimized at the speed and angle of attack of that regime. In that case, you could opt for a slender wing design. Because you're working with paper, a delta wing is usable as well, as it is structurally strong. There's two ways to go.

Of course, your airplane will inevitably lose speed after a while. A good design would change the angle of attack to adjust lift generation according to speed. That means angle of attack is increased swhen speed drops. You can achieve this by placing the center of gravity on a strategical position with relation to center of mass. A delta design is good to keep generating lift at high angle of attack, though drag becomes a problem then. You do not need swept back wings for you low speed regimes in paper airplanes, but again structurally they're convenient in paper.

Of course, even when you change angle of attack with speed, you want to minimize drag. This will allow you to keep altitude while moving as fast as possible. If you keep altitude but harddly go forward, your plane is not optimal. So you must see whether a (large) delta indeed is handy or does not create too much drag. Also, check whether a slowly descending (but faster forward speed) track does get you farther than a track that keeps altitude for a long time but sacrifices forward speed for this.

And of course adding weight gives a minus on needed lift, but a plus on inertia.

Anyway, enjoy it and see for yourself how different (wing) designs change the drag and lift parameters of your craft. You'll learn a lot about stability, optimization. You'll see the influence of the curvature of your profile or alternatively of flaps. And you'll get interesting aspects with aerodynamically and structurally efficient (or even possible) wings in paper, such as slender versus delta.
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In real aircraft, I'd go for wings as slender as possible, like in a sailplane. I would give no more curvature than needed for lift equation at initial speed. I'd make longitudinal stability such that a very slight angle of attack is achieved at lower speeds. This will be a problem, as you'll quickly end up with a longitudinally unstable aircraft that pitches up into stall. You must counteract that pitch up moment until speed is very low, and een then it must be limited or the drag increse will halt your flight before you squeezed out everything.

Delta wings have bad lift to drag ratio, so you wouldn't want those if you want to go fast. They can be rather good in high angle of attack flights however, so possibly you will find a use for them. Most delta paper airplanes that appear to be flying well are little more than stable darts with very little lift generation though. IF they're stable :).

You would not need swept wings at your speed regime.

Winglets just might help. If not in lift, than maybe in stability and certainly in cool looks :). I would opt for a conventional design with the vertical tail at the back, and the horizontal tailplanes as well. Whether you place those low or in a T tail is up to you. A T tail can be more efficient, but unless designed very well it often is not. Also do mind the wake of the wings that might make your horizontal tail useless.

Take a fan and hang up your model in this "wind tunnel". You'll find out much about drag, stability and the like. You'll have to hang up your model on the center of gravity, which you can find by balancing it without airstream. directional stability can be forced through symmetry and a "large" rearward vertical tail. You'll have to check your pitch behaviour to tune it to your whiches though.

[Knowledge_Seeker]

now to think about it, id just like to have a lot of distance, speed isnt necessary, the plane can just glide

[Stregone]

I once made a sailplane looking plane from an index card (cut up and glued together white wings style). Its wingspan was a little less than a foot, made each one the length of the card. Also stuck a paper clip on the nose, the nose was just large enough for a small paper clip to hold on.

Anyways, I went out behind my apartment building, and there was a long hill that stretched the entire length of 2 buildings, and it was about 15 feet high, with a pretty nice incline. The wind was blowing almost directly into it. I trimmed my little sailplane for a slight bank, and gave it a gentle toss off the hill.

Sucker stayed up for a few minutes circling, untill the wind changed a bit and it lost the ridge lift. Thats my favorite paper plane I've ever made :p I wonder if I still have it in my box of white wings planes...

[publiusr]

I love paper airplanes.

[Nicolas]

Especially heavy lift paper airplanes! ;)

[Candy]

I used to work at the Walden Book Store. I just now realized Ken Blackburn is the "author" of all those paper airplane books. :doh:

I bet you could get them for a great price on Amazon.com.

[Knowledge_Seeker]

thanx

[forresttrenaman]

This is my favorite all round paper airplane
7968
Click HERE (http://www.zurqui.com/crinfocus/paper/air-bld1.html) for folding instructions.

This is my favorite paper glider
7969
Click HERE (http://www.omniwing.com/Construction/construction.html) for folding instructions.

[forresttrenaman]

This is my favorite all round paper airplane
http://www.zurqui.com/crinfocus/paper/pp-lnk.jpg
Click HERE (http://www.zurqui.com/crinfocus/paper/air-bld1.html) for folding instructions.

This is my favorite paper glider
http://www.mena-ark.com/kelsey/Family/Daddy/a_PaperAirplane.jpg
Click HERE (http://www.omniwing.com/Construction/construction.html) for folding instructions.

[JonnyV70]

I've created a blog where I plan to build and test different paper airplane designs that I come across. Feel free to check it out at paperairplanedesign.muxgo.com (http://paperairplanedesign.muxgo.com)

[Cougar]

This (http://www.exploratorium.edu/exploring/paper/airplanes.html) is the one I like. It's got a great glide ratio.