THE STUDY OF THE DIFFERENT DISTANCES PAPER AIRPLANES FLY WITH
DIFFERENT LENGTH WINGS
Preston Gabson
Cary Academy
ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study was to determine how far different types of airplanes flew under
certain conditions. The process of flight is controlled by such natural forces as gravity, lift, drag
and thrust. In this experiment, three different types of paper airplanes were made with regular
rule paper and with construction paper in the control experiment. Then the paper airplanes
were thrown in the air to see how far each paper airplane design flew. It was discovered that
the dart design airplane flew farther than the other designs. The likely reason for this result is
the longer wingspan and the stream line body, that meant less drag and more thrust which
helped the dart paper airplane fly farther than the other designs.
INTRODUCTION
For a while, mankind has been trying to fly but achieving flight on air has not been an easy
task. It was not until the year 1903 that two brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright (the Wright
brothers) built the very first airplane that flew on air, right here in North Carolina. It has always
been difficult to achieve flight on air because air is a physical substance which has weight. It is
a mixture of different gases such as Oxygen, Carbon Dioxide and Nitrogen. The air around us
has molecules which are constantly moving and it is this movement of molecule that creates
air pressure needed for flight. Moving air has a force strong enough to lift objects such as kites
and balloons up and down. However long or sustained flights are only possible when four
forces — drag, gravity, thrust, and lift come together in balanced. Pressure is very important
for anything with wings including real airplanes or paper airplanes to fly. Fast-moving air on top
of the wings has a lower pressure than slow-moving air under the wings. The pressure of the
air is therefore greater beneath the wing than above it. This difference in air-pressure forces
the wing upward. This force is called a lift. This is what gets the plane off the ground. Thrust is
the forward movement of the plane. The initial thrust comes from the power of the engine in a
real plane or the muscles of the "pilot" as the paper airplane is launched into the air. After this,
airplanes are really gliders, converting altitude to forward motion.
Consider also what happens with hot air balloons. Hot air expands and spreads out and it
becomes lighter than cool air. When a balloon is full of hot air it rises up because the hot air
expands inside the balloon. When the hot air cools and is let out of the balloon the balloon
comes back down. In building the paper airplane, most of the concepts were learned about
how things fly. Although the paper airplane is just an origami, it has all the feature of a real
airplane. For example, the cross-section of the wing has a shape called airfoil. As the wing
moves through the air, the air divides to pass around the wing. The airfoil is curved so that air
passing above the wing moves faster than the air passing beneath. Fast-moving air has a
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lower pressure than slow-moving air. This design should help my paper plane behave like a
real plane.
In a similar experiment conducted by Dzu Thuc to determine how far different types of paper
airplanes flew. He hypothesized that a straight nosed paper airplanes made with normal light
weight paper will fly farther than a bull nose designed paper airplane built with the same
material. He tested his theory by building two origami airplanes. One with a straight nose and
another with a bull nose. Using a meter stick and timer, measured how far each airplane
travelled when thrown from a given distance and concluded that the straight nose or regular
design flew farther than the bullnose because the way the bull nose was folded created more
air resistance which made it harder to fly. He was not surprised by this result because his
result was similar to previous experiments by Sam Stanforth also from Cary Academy.
The four types of forces the paper airplanes needs to fly
MATERIALS AND METHODS
The materials used to conduct this experiment were rule writing paper, construction (thick)
paper, microwave, table fan, a ruler, meter sticks, a tablet computer, a table, a counter, a piece
of tape, stapler and a glue sticks.
For the first set of experiments three different design types of paper airplanes: the dart, the
glider and the flyer were made. Each was designed to react differently to air pressure and
wind speed. The Dart was designed with long wings and slender, aero dynamic body. The
glider has long wings but short, stocky body while the Flyer has short wings and long
body. The three paper planes were thrown individually from the same distance and allowed to
fly and land on their own. A measurement was then taken using the meter stick and recorded
to see how far each paper plane design flew.
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For the second experiment, a paper airplane was built out of three different paper materials, a
rule paper, construction paper and white sheet paper. The planes were thrown individually
from the same location and allowed to land on their own. Then a measurement was taken
using the meter stick and recorded to see how far each plane flew.
For the third experiment, all three airplane designs - the dart, the glider and the flyer paper
airplane made out of construction paper was left in a microwave for 0 seconds, 5 seconds, 10
seconds and 15 seconds to see if there was any impact from heat on their ability to fly. As
previously done, all three planes were thrown individually from the same position and allowed
to fly and land on their own. Then a measurement was taken using the meter stick and
recorded to see how far each plane flew.
For the fourth and final experiment using only the dart, the wings was folded to achieve three
different wing spans which measured out to be 5 centimeters, 6.5 centimeters and 8
centimeters. At each wing length, the plan was thrown from the same position and allowed to
fly freely and land on its own. Then a measurement was taken using the meter stick, as in
previous experiments. The distance travelled with each of the three wing spans was recorded
to see which one travelled farthest.
A fan’s wind blowing a paper airplane a distance
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RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
900
Diistance Flown(cm)
800
700
600
500
400
300
200
100
0
3
5
7
9
11
Measurement of wing(cm)
Figure 1. The length of wings of a paper airplane
The 11 cm wing of the paper airplane was found to fly farther than the other lengths of wings
for the paper airplane. The distance from wing tip to wing tip is called wing span, and the
distance from the front to the back of the wing is called the chord. The ratio of wing span to
average chord is called "aspect ratio", and is an important characteristic of wings. Although
high aspect ratio wings reduce drag, also require better building materials. The low strength of
paper does not allow the use of high aspect ratio wings.
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700
Distance Flown(cm)
600
500
400
300
200
100
0
Dart
Glider
Flyer
Type of Paper Airplane
Figure 2. The distance flown by different types of paper airplanes
The dart paper airplane flew the farther than the glider paper airplane and the flyer paper
airplanes when thrown. Being unpowered, a glider cannot travel fast and so has long straight
wings that produce high lift at very low speed. A flyer airplane has short wings so it has lots of
drag through the air so it won’t go as far. A dart paper airplane can have long wings and has a
body that slices through the air which doesn’t give it much weight.
700
Distance Flown(cm)
600
500
400
300
200
100
0
Oringinal
Glider
Flyer
Type of Paper airplane
Figure 3. The distance flown by different types of paper airplanes
The glider paper airplane made from construction paper flew farther than a flyer and a dart
paper airplane made from construction. Paper airplanes usually have short "stubby" wings, .
Short wings don’t have a lot of air pulling against them which doesn’t give it much control and it
drags through the air so it won’t go as far. Planes that push a lot of air, like a hand does when
it faces the side it is known to have a lot of "drag," or resistance, when moving through the air.
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When a paper plane flies, to go as far as possible it would need as little drag as possible. A
second force that planes have to overcome to go farther is "gravity." The paper airplane's
weight needs to a minimum to help fight against gravity's pull to the ground. called "low aspect
ratio" wings. With a thicker material or paper, it is easier to make planes with high aspect ratio
wings.
760
Distance Flown(cm)
740
720
700
680
660
640
620
0
5
10
15
Time in Microwave(sec)
Figure 4. The time the paper airplane was in the microwave then thrown
The paper airplane that was warmed up for 15 seconds flew the farther than the paper
airplanes that were heated up for 0, 5 and 10 seconds. The Universe is made up of matter and
energy. Matter is made up of atoms and molecules (groupings of atoms) and energy causes
the atoms and molecules to always be in motion – either bumping into each other or vibrating
back and forth. The motion of atoms and molecules creates o form of energy called heat of
thermal energy which is present in all matter. Even in the coldest voids of space, matter still
has a very small but still measurable amount of heat energy.
160
Distane Flown(cm)
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
0
1
2
3
Wind Speeds
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Figure 5. The winds speeds that blew the paper airplanes a distance
The wind speed at 3 blew the paper airplane farther than the wind speeds at 0, 1 and 2 that
blew the paper airplane. Wind is the flow of gases on a large scale. On Earth, wind consists of
the bulk movement of air. In outer space, solar wind is the movement of gases or charged
particles from the sun through space, while planetary wind is the outgassing of light chemical
elements from a planet's atmosphere into space. Winds are commonly classified by
their spatial scale, their speed, and the types of forces that cause them, the regions in which
occurred, and their effect.
CONCLUSION
It was determined that the longer the wings are, the farther the paper airplanes would fly and
the more it would glide when thrown in the air. This seems to be necessary to know because
the longer the wings are, the wind will force against it making it go farther but not faster and the
short wings make the paper airplane move faster but it doesn’t go as far. My hypothesis was
wrong because it was thought that the shorter the wings were the farther it would go, even
though it moves faster it still doesn’t go as far as long wings do. A future experiment that would
be interesting to propose would be measuring the distance paper airplanes with different size
wings but made out of a different type of paper or a different type of paper airplane.
CITATIONS
Needham, Mass. Forces of motion Prentice Hall science explorer, 2000.
Blackburn, Ken. Kids Paper Airplane Book Juvenile literature Press, 1996.
Scholastic. What makes airplanes fly 2013
http://teacher.scholastic.com/paperairplane/airplane.htm [Accessed Feb 4, 2013]
Rachel, Peletz. The Science of Paper Airplanes Feb 24, 2001
http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Programs/doublex/spring02/paperairplane.html [Accessed Feb
8, 2013]
EBSCO Middle Research Center Airplanes 2013
http://search.ebscohost.com/airplanes.html [Accessed Feb 9, 2013]
Dzu, Thuc The Study of how far different paper airplanes can fly. Cary: Cary Academy, 2012,
.
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