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Ask Slashdot: The Very Best Paper Airplane?
An anonymous reader writes "'The Harrier' (or 'Eastern star,' as it is also called), is very well known, and is considered to be one of the best paper airplane designs. After much searching and trying, I have not found a better plane. So, I am asking Slashdot: is there anything that beats 'The Harrier' in a competition (indoors or outdoors)? This would be a really nice geek skill!"
The harrier is 1980s technology. Try a F35-B joint strike fighter STOVL variant. Folding instructions are a bit behind schedule and over budget still.
But it kept deflagrating on the pad.
They can test out ideas in a cool way.
At least if going by the quality of this guide's description.
'no fold the wings so that the wings come to the bottom and the bottom of the plane is quite slanted'
'now you have you're finished plane'
http://www.instructables.com/id/Awesome-paper-plane!!/
due to its erratic flight, it let you use the full gymnasium, much more exciting than anything that flew in a straight line....
Might not win a competition, but I've always liked this design. Looks way cool when flying.
The Ring.
Life is like a web application. Sometime you need cookies just to get by.
Speed? Distance? Height? The optimal design depends on what you want to achieve.
I remember this from an old over 30 years ago.
http://www.instructables.com/id/Build-the-Barnaby-Paper-Aeroplane/
I've always liked Ken Blackburn's that set the world record, it's easy to make and the wing actually makes a nice airfoil.
horror vacui
One time at my university the engineering department had this paper airplane competition, everyone was given a sheet of 8.5x11" paper and a paper clip. It was particularly windy that day and the event had been organized for better weather so we ended up having to throw the planes directly into the wind from ground level. The distance of the various planes people built ranged from -10 feet to 20 feet from launch point. Taking this into account I decided to modify my design at the last second. I stepped up to the launch area with my plane, aimed it at a 45 degree angle, crumbled it up into a ball and threw it as hard as I could. I got something like 40 feet and had the furthest distance. I kept saying that it was designed to minimize air resistance but In the end I was disqualified for being a smart ass.
[FUCK BETA 2.6.2014]
http://paplet.blog.cz/0905/dvoumotorak
in this Instructable I will show you how to make a really good paper airplane i have pondered and wondered if this is really the best but i have recently done some tests and my conclusion was that yes this was the best paper airplane. the farthest i have gotten this plane to go is 112 feet!!!
The farthest point on Earth from me is in the middle of the fucking ocean, and I don't feel the need to exclaim to my wife "Honey! I've discovered the best place on Earth where we can fuck like animals while I teach you the superiority of a properly-configured HOSTS file vs. antimalware software!"
The very best distance paper airplane I have ever encountered was shown to me by a fellow church-going Virginian when I was about 5 years old.
You fold the paper into a very narrow dart looking shape, a wingspan of maybe an inch or so at most, a length of almost the entire sheet. Throwing this paper airplane, you can get incredible distances.
I've never seen anyone else use that design, not that I've looked especially hard.
The Great International Paper Airplane Book by Scientific America : http://www.amazon.com/Great-International-Paper-Airplane-Book/dp/0671211293
had, at least at the time, the "best performing" for time aloft, distance, etc. The designs were very solid.
The record was recently broken: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newsvideo/weirdnewsvideo/9112031/Paper-aeroplane-throw-in-US-sets-new-world-record.html
I grew up having to go to church. And every week, I would wait so impatiently for the 20 minutes or so at the end of service when all of us kids would get the run of the main hall and run around in circles and burn off all the energy we'd saved up sitting still!
We had a perpetual paper airplane contest, because every week there were program sheets passed out that nobody cared about after the service. So I spent years competing for the best flying airplane, at least among other children under 12 or so.
The very best design I ever concocted was a "square plane" design, something like this one, except that instead of folding it down the middle, I bent it up about 1" along either side, making it into a low, squared off "U" shape when viewed from the front. Experiment with different sizes of roll, different lengths of roll until you get it right. (I didn't get much result making the fins down either side much smaller or bigger, 1" is about perfect) I usually got best results with the plane being 6" wide and 6" long - nearly perfect square, with about 5 inches of paper rolled up at the front.
Launch by pulling it into the air straight up, over your head, with your fingers under the front rolled-over part, it will gently fly with the fins up ("upside down") and glide a long way, dancing along the edge of stall. If you are looking for excellent hang times (not speed) this is the plane you want. 30 seconds or more of airtime are commonplace.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Just use a sheet, draw a treasure map on it, and let it fly.
In a lot of movies, a simple sheet of paper is able to fly long distances, even when there is no wind, as long as it contains something important for the hero.
As always, it depends on your goals. The Harrier (or Nakamura) is indeed an excellent plane if you're looking for aerobatic performance. A slight adjustment of the ailerons (and much practice) can have it doing barrel rolls, loops, or any combination of tricks. It is one of my favorite. For flight duration and gliding, I prefer a flying wing design similar to the Surfer with different winglet folds based on flight conditions. And for distance, the old missile or dart style airplane (probably the first paper airplane you ever learned how to fold) generally performs best. Get those folds nice and tight and throw as hard as you can at 45 degrees and then go chase it down.
My fav came from the Great International Paper Airplane Book. Sort of square design with upturned wing tips. The initial shape reminded me of a diaper. But here's the kicker: I tossed one of these off the Eiffel Tower and filmed it. It flew for 7.5 minutes and landed on the other side of the Seine. Good times.
For aiming, it's only slightly worse than the dart style of paper plane, but this one has *WAY* more lift....when made correctly, a gentle toss can send it gliding almost perfectly straight for dozens of yards.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
"The Harrier"? Where did that come from? This plane is known as Nakamura lock, although this design is normally recognized as the "defualt" paper airplane design. It doesn't really need a name. When someone simply says "a paper airplane" without providing any specifics, it is universally assumed that Nakamura lock is implied.
Best is very subjective. I'd wager that if you could compress the sheet of paper down into an ultra-dense ball maybe the size of a slingshot ball, it could be launched much farther than any airplane-shaped piece of paper. Is a ball still an airplane? Is "best" defined by the maximum distance it can travel? Obviously the ball is not best if "best" requires it to look like our primitive airplanes...
....start off quite elaborate then end up as a scrunched ball of paper.
Another case where NOTHING beats rock.
Back when I was still at school, one year, my classroom was one overlooking a deep vale. One of our primary pastimes that year was chucking assorted stuff out the window and see how it'd fly. Mostly (but not limited to) paper planes.
The record winner for that year in terms of distance covered, and by far, was also the simplest model we ever came up with.
It was much like the Ring mentioned above, except even simpler. Where the Ring's profile makes an O, the Box's makes a square U. So you don't even need tape.
Just take a rectangular piece of paper, fold the front over several times to make a thicker leading edge, and fold two vertical wings so the thing will look somewhat like an elongated cube with three missing sides. That's it. Not only it flies, but it flies pretty well, so long as you balanced the 'wings' well enough.
-- B.
This sig does in fact not have the property it claims not to have.
We used to hold paper airplane competitions back in grade school, I won a few using this plane, which I got from some 'paper airplane creator' software. Works really good outside & the flaps can make it do decent rolls and stuff.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8KahWm-jSM&feature=related
It's always been my favorite.
I recommend the learn the grammar.
You got the touch!
I once owned a copy of a large paperback titled "The Ultimate Paper Airplane". It was actually a very interesting read. Between templates for paper airplanes, it told the tale of the Kline-Fogleman Airfoil. Basically, if you cut out a wedge from a wing or propeller, the airfoil becomes significantly more efficient. The book went into the physics of it.
Anyway, I don't know if that paper airplane is what you're looking for. But, wouldn't you know it, YouTube has a video of one being made and flown.
Fun with Anagarams! LADS HOST, SHALT DOS. HAS DOLTS. AD SLOTHS, HATS SOLD. ASS HO, LTD.
Most of mine are usually all variations on that one, give or take the angle and number of folds in the wings. The conventional paper airplane, the classic is pretty good too, if you fold larger section of the tip down, which gives it a little more weight on the front end. It'll make it fly longer, if you adjust the angle of the wings from quarter to half. That's my two cents. Hope that helps.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_Aircraft_Released_Into_Space
Geeks like to think that they can ignore politics, you can leave politics alone, but politics won't leave you alone.-rms
You may want to try this : http://www.paperang.com/aero.htm
Unfortunately, it looks like the whole building instructions are not free.
I found the two ring model works great. http://www.kids-fun-science.com/cool-science-experiments.html Instead of a straw you can just roll up the remainder of the peice of paper. It glides amazingly flat and even. I remember reading that it had one some distance contests when launched from a platform but I could not find a reference on line.
I was shown how to fold the "Harrier" in 1972 by a kid at my school called Tony. he called it the "Tonybony Special" and so I do to this day. It's my standard 'plane. Once I flew one from a third storey window on a hot summer's day and it caught a thermal and was still in the air over half an hour later, just lazily circling. I have no idea how long it stayed up altogether.
The only bad thing about the design is that, like most paper planes, it doesn't scale up all that well. Folding an A1 sheet to the same design doesn't work, sadly.
I'll reply to you because you're high up enough to be noticed.
Absolutely no one in the thread has noted my favorite design. Sorry, no pics. This is a stunt design, not about distance.
1. Typical 8x11, vertical/portrait
2. Bottom left corner to 3/4 right side.
3. Bottom right corner to match = "Inverted house". Crease hard. (I flip 180 degrees here for ease on next step.)
4. Buckle the two sides in so that you get another "house" but this time with two extra flaps.
Protip: Slight variations in this step lead to different tricks.
5. Fold Nose Half to 2/3 of the way to the base of the "triangle". (Created by the cross folds.)
6. Fold directly in half along the base to connect both wings.
7. Fold each wing down making a fuselage
8. Fold wingtips up or down as desired.
It's a slow heavy design but it can do about 4 tricks depending on mods:
Yoyo Loops (Right back to your feet), Circle Patrols, Short-Direct flights 15 feet away, or "Ditzy" where it completely loses its balance and goes haywire.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
please, stop. As a real an interested reader of slashdot, I am ungodly sick of fools like you presuming the reason errors exist in posts is lack of education; it's really lack of interest in making you happy that let's me be happy sayin' its, it's, it is, or freakin' "itis" for crap sake, whenever I want to. If you are really so retentive you can't deal with interpreting what people type into your own chosen dialect, then it's YOUR problem, not ours.
CS majors know the time/space tradeoff, but they never get taught the 3rd, crucial, tradeoff of the set: comprehension!
Engineers can suck the fun out of anything. I say this as an engineer, of course...
This design appears to be identical to one I learned to make from a Klutz Press book. It is called the Nakamura Lock, after its designer, and it is definitely the best paper airplane I have flown indoors. It seems kind of tacky to rename it - the designer should get some credit for his work.
I almost won a distance competition in Boy's Brigade in elementary school with this design. It was just a piece of paper crumpled up as tight as I could squeeze it (I think I stepped on it a couple times too) and thrown as hard as possible. The guy who came in second of course argued that it wasn't an airplane. I got some kind of award, though it might have been some kind of "outside the box" award.
... on what you are looking for your plane to do. Distance? Speed? Accuracy? Stunts?
I don't know of a single plane that does all of the above. The Harrier design has pretty good distance and accuracy, but isn't very fast and doesn't do a whole lot of stunts.
Dart designs have high speed and the best accuracy, but don't often to go nearly as far as a plane that has better glide/lift.
Broad-winged planes like several mentioned here usually have crap for distance, speed, and accuracy, but can be made to do some interesting stunts depending on how you shape flaps into their trailing wing edges.
When I was a kid, we had a longest flying plane contest. The rules were the plane had to be moving, and out of your hands. I attached a piece of string to it, and whipped it around for four minutes. The buggers DQed me, stating that I should follow the spirit of the rules.
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
This guy set the world distance record recently. He has a lot of paper airplane designs on his web site.
http://thepaperairplaneguy.com/
A video of some of his different designs.
http://www.dump.com/paperairplane/
- YT
I have had pretty good success (and some random failures) with this design. Alas I can not find a reference to it online, and more than likely the name I have for it is incorrect. I found the design when I was a younger child, the design was in a book of paper plane designs.
The design is fairly simple though:
The result will be a traditional dart with a tiered nose, which will fly a bit more stabler than a traditional dart. You may need to gently tweak the trailing edge of the wings to create a bit more upward direction (lift is probably the wrong word). You can also play with the positioning of the creases made in the additional step to adjust the balance, which will probably achieve the same results as the wing tweaking.
The following SVG should give you a hint: http://pastebin.com/PnsaGPzK
I recommend the read the GP post.
I went looking on the 'Net for a link to my favorite paper airplane design, so that I could post it here. To my mild surprise, I couldn't find one. Since this is a rather unusual paper airplane that I learned to make at my local elementary school (about 20 years ago--does that make me old?), I decided that I should preserve it in a blog post for posterity.
Below is a link to the post, with pictures of the various steps, as well as the finished product. It should be noted that this planes is not good for distance, but rather for really neat flying patterns. I hope you enjoy it.
http://danemutters.wordpress.com/2012/04/11/cool-paper-airplane-design/
This (second from right) is my favorite. You do need glue or tape to make it, which may disqualify it from the record books, depending on how purist your rules are.
The one in the photo has a straw for a fuselage, but you can make it from paper by folding a long strip of paper into a three-sided prism and taping or gluing it shut. The two ring-shaped wings should be slightly different diameters, and the plane should be launched small ring forward. It is amazingly stable and I could throw it farther than any competing plane in my class. I'm not sure if it would travel the full length of my elementary-school gym, but it wouldn't surprise me if it did.
When I was in HS, my math teacher held a day long paper airplace event. During the period my class was there some guy came up with a bit of reefer paper ( about 1/8"x1/8" ) on his finger tip. Guy called it "The Reefer Express". He blew on it and it floated up into the air got caught in the wind. We were using the football stadium , it floated across the stadium and we never did see it come down. Won the competition hands down.
The Paper Airplane usually flies some variant of the Klein-Fogelman Airfoil. Lookup the "Ultimate Paper Airplane" in amazon. They teach an interesting design, but your Harrier will usually perform better than their designs if you're having kids fold it. Try folding a flatter, wider version, with the wing folds being just across the top of the hold-down fold that your harrier instructions call the "cockpit" - the part shaded red. If you want slower flight, you can cut a "tail" across the keel fold and up to the wing folds. It will act as an elevator.
If you're playing as an adult...
Buy the Ultimate Paper Airplane which discusses KF airfoils and plan on buying the special paper. Heavier paper and crisp folds will easily break the 175 foot mark.
If you want more speed and sharper wind performance, try making planes out of business card stock or card stock. Many times a soda straw can substitute for a keel fold. Hold the control surfaces onto the straw using scotch tape. Adjust CG using a paper clip or fifteen - you will end up with what looks like a ghetto "White Wings", that doesn't take five hours of gluing.
For good times with fast construction - try cutting airplanes out of McDonald's Big Breakfast containers and use pennies and for CG. The lightweight foam is reasonably crash proof, and flies very straight. Control surfaces and rudders can be made by just cutting a slit and inserting a leftover piece.
FYI, one of the longest paper airplane flights from the 80's - time wise - was made by a "plane" that spun over and over again along its axis. The plane only had to fall for 5 feet to make over a minute in the air.
Hope you find your inner child.
In a slightly different vein, but still made of paper, these "walkalong" gliders can stay up a long time. Longer than any conventional paper airplane thrown from the ground. See the video:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Indoor-Paper-Airplane-Walkalong-Glider/
Found this same plane in a paper airplane book when I was a kid back in the 80s. This will compete with anything as far as gliding distance when dropped from a decent height: http://thesassyhomemaker.com/2010/02/17/how-to-make-a-paper-airplane-that-actually-flies
It also has the advantage of being incredibly easy to make and remember how to make after one time. And makes a great Cat in the Pope Hat costume for your feline.
I spent a few years of my youth testing planes and came up with two which are the best.
First, you have a dart, a more basic variation of that one you pointed out. It is the one where you make two folds and then fold over. Very simple and quick to make, and very fast and stable. (this design, but I fold right to the point: http://www.amazingpaperairplanes.com/Basic_Dart.html).
Then there was the stunt plane, which I found was recently the world record plane. This guys plane is a better version of the one I made. Mine was the same shape and weighting, but with different folds so the front wasn't held together. Anyhow, the following plane is IMHO the best in the world: http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Fold_Your_Own_Sky_King_Paper_Airplane
like phosphorescent desert buttons singing one familiar song
I didn't like the blunt nose of the original "Harrier", so I designed "Sharp-nosed paper airplane", here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_8EbzUyBqY -- try it out.
Not folding arms on floor.
http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%85%92%E7%B2%BE%E4%B8%AD%E6%AF%92
Big white F35-phone over.
Rice paper higher fly.
Plans for this acrobatic plane were published in a 4-volume 1940's British encyclopedia called 'World of the Children'. (I have a copy on my shelf.) The instructions call it a glider, and explain how to gently release it by the tail so it proceeds across the room in a leisurely fashion. At six, I discovered I could hold the thing nose-first with my three middle fingers and whip it high into the sky.
It might not be a world-beater, but it's fun to fly.
Hal Spacejock: Science Fiction with Nuts
The best paper plane I ever made was a modification of a simple glider with a heavy nose. I can't easily post instructions here, but I folded the wings back and forth such that the plane took an appearance of wvw from the front. It does not glide, but instead it throws like a bullet and goes perfectly straight. With a strong enough throw, it can out distance many other planes.
If best = flies the furthest in a straight line from the person throwing it then no, the harrier is not the best.
If best = most fun to tweak then no, the harrier is not the best.
http://hairball.mine.nu/~rwa2/aircraft/
"The arrow" for straight-line distance.
"The flying wing" for glide slope.
"The super guppy" for cargo capacity (usually water).
"The basic glider" is good for loops and stunts.
"The slant-nose glider" for wet terrain (it has landing gear that help keep the wings dry).
Whoosh.
This one (from the Danish television show So Ein Ding) looks a bit complicated to build, but the flying is quite impressive: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPtXaSlEYgw
geek approach to the problem would be to work out the center of gravity and pressure for different designs, take some areodynamics into account and select the best possible design like that
If time aloft if the metric, then I think the an MTA origami boomerang might fit the bill. The competition record for an MTA is something like 6-7 minutes, and can achieve 15 minutes in casual throwing. That's wood, much heavier then a paper one would be. The trick would be to make one side 2-3 times longer then the other
side. The principle is the same as a maple seed which comes helicoptering through the air, except it's also a boomerang.
"then it's YOUR problem, not ours."
Idiots like you drag the world down by your very existence.
Do the world a favor and commit suicide.
Yes, it is OUR problem. You, and your ilk are giving the rest of us a bad name, ruining our reputation as mammals.
What an inept piece of trolling that was.
"i recommend the grow the fuck up"?
Well I recommend the learn the spell!
The sort of retard who trolls for frosty piss is lucky to be readable, never mind grammatically correct.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I've always had luck with this one.
klinefogleman imo is the best since it's design prevents stalling
If you rub a spoon round side up under the wings you create static air pockets which kill friction and a paer clip at fron and you can get great distances
Not getting what you mean by Step 4. I am stuck without brain visualization.
I found it usually has a tendancy to go up, down or veer since folding is never exact so I cut ailerons into the back of the wings and bend them to correct.
but didn't we do this topic recently: http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/03/24/139245/giant-paper-airplane-takes-brief-flight-over-arizona/? Anyway, again, here is my favorite:http://www.zurqui.com/crinfocus/paper/airplane.html/
Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?
WHAT SIZE PAPER DO YOU USE?
By that I don't mean overall square footage, but length/width ratio.
There is a big difference between using a legal sized piece of paper and a normal sized sized and a square piece of paper.
Most likely a longer one does better - but I have never seen any real info on which ratio of length to width is the best.
The "Best" is going to greatly depend on lots of things including, but not limited to, how well you folded it, throw it, paper type, relative humidity, altitude, etc.
That said, I ran across this a few years ago:
http://www.instructables.com/id/KlineFogleman-Airfoil-1-Paper-Airplane/
It requires very accurate folding, but if done right with the right kind of paper and flown in good conditions it can be impressive. The airfoil turns some of the drag into lift and stability. The two guys that patented the airfoil wrote a book about it some years ago.
Also, there is a difference between making a plane for record distance and making a plane for record time aloft. The former needs minimal drag while the latter needs maximum lift.
My favorite is the wing-with-grip: http://burtleburtle.net/bob/other/airplane.html
It has a tendency to spiral, but when it goes straight it goes a long ways, and it does great acrobatics in a large room or outdoors after a hard toss.
The classic Dart has always my mainstay when making planes for my son and his friends.
I am also partial to the designs in this book : http://www.amazon.com/The-Ultimate-Paper-Airplane-Step/dp/0671555510
ISBN-10: 0671555510
ISBN-13: 978-0671555511
I have a variation of the general "Ultimate" designs, and the "Harrier" that resembles a Shuttle - These used to be mandatory for my then 3yro (now 6) when we watched shuttle liftoffs, and landings.
It is better to be the hammer than the anvil.
I'm surprised no one has posted this yet:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walkalong_glider
Hi there!
After the first steps that bring the corners to the opposite sides, and crease, and flip, when you uncrease the paper you have two diagonal creases suggesting a square bounded on 3 sides by the paper and the 4th by an un-drawn line where the diagonal creases hits the paper edges. (There's a little bit of paper "unassigned" because those diagonal folds essentially mark off a square, and of course 8x11 paper is rectangular.)
So with your paper at portrait orientation with a big X crease in it, fold the top edge horozontally down *behind and away* from you to form a horozontal crese in the middle of the X crease, and try not to physically re-orient the paper. (Then unfold- it was just a crease)
Then when you unfold it, if I explained this right, the concept will explode into your mind with one more sentence. Very slowly, for didactic effect,
push the sides of the horozontal crease *inward to touch each other and down along the diagonals so both lay flat on the base of the paper*.
That's the reason I had you do the horozontal crease back and away, because it makes the paper almost want to go right where you need it. Then jut flatten the top down which (hopefully) should be obvious by now because there's nowhere else for it to go.
Does that help?
Later on if you get bored and want to kill an hour, that "flap creator" is a lynchpin of oragami, so you can make yourself 10 big square sheets of paper and fiddle with it.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Pretty much this. http://www.instructables.com/id/Awesome-paper-plane!!/
5th picture in step 1.
One of the world record holders was made by Ken Blackburn. Here is the design:
http://www.10paperairplanes.com/how-to-make-paper-airplanes/08-the-champ.html
For those that remember Glider (video), the old paper airplane game for Mac, the author offers the OS X version for free here:
http://homepage.mac.com/calhoun/Glider%20PRO.html
This is one that should definitely be in the running: http://www.paperang.com/download.htm
Fairly simple, but VERY affective
Lunar Surface Paper Airplane Time and Distance Contest