Paper Airplane

Print the document files, Front Page, and Back Page on a piece of paper. Print the 2 files on the two sides of the same piece of paper. You may need to print one side first, then feed the paper back to the printer and print the second page.

These are the steps to print the files.

Click on the files to display it on the computer. Then click on File (on the menu bar), and select Print. A print dialog box will be displayed. Make sure you set "Page Scaling" to "None" before printing. On a Mac, you may need to expand the print dialog box to see "Page Scaling". (There is a button with a triangle pointing down. Click on that to expand the print dialog box if it is not already expanded.)

Note: The two diagonal line 1 (black) and the center line 5 (blue) should not meet together inside the edge of the paper. If they do, Page Scaling have been turned on. On older versions, the print dialog box may call Page Scaling something else, but the function is still to scale the print contents to fit the print area. It is ok if the lines stop before reaching the edge of the paper.

Follow the instructions on the paper.

The lines to be folded are marked with numbers. These are the steps where that line is folded. Even though the diagram has many lines on it, the steps are actually very simple. Just fold one step at a time slowly.

There is a red line on the diagram. Don't care about that for now.

After you know the steps, you don't need the diagram to fold it. You can fold the airplane on a blank piece of paper.

Wider wing span

You don’t have to follow the fold lines exactly as printed on the paper. You can make variations; but whatever you do make sure the left and right sides are symmetrical.

In step 6, you can vary the size of the wing. You can make it larger as follows. At the nose end of the airplane, mark a point 7mm from the lower edge of the airplane body (the underside of the fuselage). At the tail end of the airplane, mark a point 42mm from the lower edge of the body. Draw a line connecting these two points. Fold the wing along this line. Step 7 is not needed.

When folding the wing, press down at the nose end of the fold line first. Then slowly move another finger along the line towards the tail end to form the wing, but don’t press hard on the fold line. Work on it so that the edge where the wing meets the body staying round. Air flow doesn’t like sharp corners.

Wider wing span allows the plane to glide slower. When throwing the plane, keep it level. Give it a thrust right before it leaves your hand.

Aerodynamics

(This part is under construction. It will give some background about the physics of flight.)

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