Help me make a good paper airplane.

[Dark Jezter]

This Friday, my place of employment is having a paper airplane contest, and the team that makes the paper airplane that flies the farthest wins an ice cream party. So I thought I'd enlist the aid of my fellow EN Worlders for help with this. Anybody know any good paper airplane plans?

The only rule for the contest is that the paper airplane must be made from a regular 8 x 10 piece of paper, the kind commonly found in printers and copy machines in offices. Also, the paper airplane can't be held together by anything like paper clips, glue, or tape.

 

[jonesy]

Behold, the best paper airplane in the world:
http://www.zurqui.co.cr/crinfocus/paper/airplane.html

 

[ph34r]

The only rule for the contest is that the paper airplane must be made from a regular 8 x 10 piece of paper, the kind commonly found in printers and copy machines in offices.

You'd be looking for 8.5 x 11 then.

 

[Krieg]

Ken Blackman's design set the guiness book world record for time aloft at 18.8 seconds in 1994:

http://www.workman.com//fliersclub/dl_wr_inst.html

 

[d20fool]

The Dragon paper airplane

This plane is not noted for distance but for accuracy. I use it with my Science Olympiad team that I coach, and we commonly place in the "Aerodynamics" event.

It's at http://www.paperairplanes.co.uk/dragon.html

This little baby will go anywhere you care to shoot it. As for distance, we've never tried that.

d20fool

 

[Wycen]

This plane is not noted for distance but for accuracy. I use it with my Science Olympiad team that I coach, and we commonly place in the "Aerodynamics" event.

It's at http://www.paperairplanes.co.uk/dragon.html

This little baby will go anywhere you care to shoot it. As for distance, we've never tried that.

d20fool

This is the design I use, except not the folding at step 4. Folding over like (reducing the size in half) that makes it heavier and I think reduces the distance it will fly.

 

[Dark Jezter]

You'd be looking for 8.5 x 11 then.

I stand corrected.

Thanks for the suggestions so far, guys. I've already made the one in Jonesey's post, and I'm gonna build the ones suggested by Krieg and d20fool and see how they work as well.

 

[jonesy]

I'd be very interested to know what model you used and how the contest turned out.

 

[Darth K'Trava]

That would be interesting to know...

I build sucky paper airplanes half the time. The other half the time, they fly decently.