Free paper airplanes, paper helicopters and gliders, LEARN TO FLY...

science fair project ideas - Loads of people ask me about science fair projects so here is a site with ideas.

http://www.ipl.org/div/kidspace/projectguide/ - is an excellent site with information about science fair projects.

http://edweb.tusd.k12.az.us/jtindell/ - With 18 sample projects this site gives a lot of inspiration for science fair projects.

I need some help with a science project. I am doing it on "Does the design of a paper airplane affect how it flies?" I am using four different designs of paper airplanes and was going to launch each one of them by hand so many times and record the distance of each throw. The teacher tells me that I can not launch them by hand because it would not be accurate (I can't throw the same way each time). He told me I need to build something like a catapult to launch the paper airplanes with. Will this work and do you have any suggestions on what kind of catapult would work?

I'm getting desperate as the project is due in early February and I still need to do the experiment with the airplanes.

If you have any ideas I would really appreciate your help ASAP. Thank you!

Dear Matt,

Your teacher is perhaps being a little unfair with the launch by hand option although I must admit it is a comment I have heard a lot from those doing science fair projects.

In a series of paper airplane trials run by the Scientific American in the 1950's (I think but don't hold me to that decade) they ran trials by simply releasing planes from a hand with no forward impetus and seeing how they behaved. If you are willing to change your project (or at least the designs you are using) this could be a solution.

For example you could analyse how the www.paperairplanes.co.uk/heliplan.php performs with different wing lengths or with different wing widths in terms of how long it stays aloft when dropped from a constant height. This would certainly make an excellent project since you could uniformly alter one variable while keeping the others constant. You would have to take into account change in mass as well as change in wing width/length or area but I believe that should be a negligable effect compared to the alterations in design.

You could also compare say the Helicopter www.paperairplanes.co.uk/heliplan.php and the Blimp www.paperairplanes.co.uk/blimp.php which both perform fine when dropped from a uniform height.

I honestly believe that analysing planes simply dropped rather than planes which are launched from a catapult is your best option for a reliable repeatable experiment since each plane requires a different throwing technique to perform best.

You seem to know a lot about airplanes, so if you wouldn't mind I have some questions for you. I would appreciate it tremendously if you would answer as soon as possible.

What design of plane would.... -fly the farthest?
-do a roll in the air?
-do a horizontal circle?
-do a vertical circle?
-stall in mid-air?
-do any kind of acrobatics?

Thank you so much for your time! If you give me the right answers I might get a good grade in physics!!

Dear Jessa ,

The plane that I have found flies the furthest is Nick's Paper Airplane. The person who showed it to me said he once had one catch a thermal and fly almost half kilometer (made out of a large sheet of paper). To do a roll in the air use this plane but make the two wings so one is higher than the other. This will make any plane roll but works best on Nick's Plane. Nick's plane works best inside for this.

The Sabertooth plane is hard to make in such a way that it does not do a horizontal circle. Make a sabertooth plane and throw it up as hard as you can into the air outside or in and it should circle down to the ground (if it does not try making one stabilising flap bigger than the other).

The loop the loop is harder, the best plane for this is the Swallow try throwing it almost horizontally forwards underarm and see if it loops the loop, if not try it overarm. Depending on how you make it one of those should give a loop the loop. Also if you fold the tail of Nick's plane in so that it acts to catch the air and increase drag it may well do a loop the loop.

The easiest thing to do to make a plane stall is to add weight to the front so put a paper clip on the front of any of my gliders and you should get a stalling plane. If not find some way of increasing drag at the back of the planes and then they should stall.

That is about all the aerodynamics I know and I am sorry this is such a short reply but I am in the middle of some major exams in England where I live which will determine whether I get a place to study physics at Cambridge next year and so with all the revision I do not have time to update my site or write long replies to any emails I receive (or cxheck the spelling). Thank you for your interest in my site and good luck with your project. I hope you get this reply in time.

Dear Alex,

We are a small group of 5th grade students that are designing paper airplanes for our school science fair. Our big question is " does the design of the plane affect the distance it flies?" So far we have tried 3 basic designs and are having alot of fun. Part of our project requires "interviewing" an expert - so could you offer us some advice on design and let us list you as a source in our notebooks? Thanks, Jessica, Juan, Tanino - this is our teacher's email (Mrs. H)

Dear Jessica, Juan and Tanino,

I am very glad that you emailed me with your question and I hope my reply is in time.

The design of the plane does of course as I am sure you realise affect how far it flies and how long it stays in the air. There are two ways to fold a plane to fly far:

1) Design a dart like Nick's Paper Airplane which will fly very far if thrown hard and at a slight upwards incline. This plane has very little lift but has a lot of stability which means it can be thrown very hard and will stay aloft despite some turbulance.

2) Design a glider with a large wing area and a lot of lift. The Sabertooth plane and the Nose heavy plane have this attribute. These planes should be thrown up high in the air giving them a lot of "gravitational potential energy" which is then gradually converted into kinetic energy and lift allowing them to fly a long distance. Try throwing the Sabertooth or Nose heavy plane underarm into the air and see the results.

There are other factors to the design in how far a plane flies.

a. The way it is thrown. With Nick's Plane throwing it vertically up will result in it coming vertically back down whereas with the Sabertooth doing this will result in it flying the maximum distance. You could experiment with all my planes, work out how they fly best and then e-mail me with your findings if you like and then I could post them on my website.

b. The amount of initial energy the plane is given. The more energy a plane is given the further it will fly. Energy is related either to the velocity with which a plane is thrown squared or the height from which it is dropped.

In conclusion the distance a plane flies is mainly determined by its design but the initial energy given to it and the angle at which it is thrown are also important.

I am from England and so do not know which year is 5th grade and have guessed your age is about 11years old. I hope I am right. If you are older or your teacher feels you would understand ask her to explain kinetic energy and gravitational potential energy to you. Also look at NASA an excellent introduction to aerodynamics.