The Paper Airplane

by: The Three Musket of Tiers

The Three Muskets of Tiers
One for all and all for me!
Kyle Redden, Nolan Slagle, Adam Waligura
The challenge
The challenge is simple, make a paper
airplane with standard 9x11 paper with two
goals in mind, make it fly long distance and
make it have large hang time. The real
challenge was when we scaled up the paper
to 4x the size and 16x the weight.
Our Philosophy
We decided that we would make two planes, one focusing
on distance, and one on hang time. From small scale trials,
we learned that small, sleek dart-type plane flew the
farthest.

For longest time in the air, we focused on surface area,
trying to create a stable glider with large wings. We went
through many designs attempting to find it.
Prototypes
Early prototypes included the well known dart, as well as
more convoluted ideas including a ninja star or even the
flying ninja.

Most of these did not work, leaving us
with a dart design and one modeled
after the world record design.

Prototype cont.






The Prototype was less than accurate, but flew
considerably well
The Upscale
With the weight significantly multiplied more than the
surface area, we needed to find a balance between
wingspan and density. With this in mind, we knew the dart
would not work. Leaving us with our final design.
Results
The upscaled plane flew a recorded 78ft
(longest distance in the class) in 2.2
seconds, though went upwards of 93ft in test
trials.Unfortunately, the aircraft was highly
unpredictable in flight patterns, either flying
beautifully or flopping to the ground.
Results cont.