Welcome to my paper airplane page. As an Aerospace Engineer I have always been very disappointed in how much information is missing or inaccurate in so many paper airplane books. One of the major reasons to build and fly paper airplanes should be to learn as much as we can about how airplanes work. It is also important to learn methods that allow us to do more ourselves. There is no reason that the average person should not be able to learn the basic design characteristics of paper airplanes to the point of being able to make new paper air plane designs as well as improving old designs.
This is one reason that I think Science Fairs are so important. Science fair projects allow us to learn, by experience, both the pure science and the applied methods. I feel that many more students would choose to experiment with paper airplane if they though that they could actually learn any true science from this type of "fun" project. Paper airplanes should never be considered to be a just get by type of science fair project. Unfortunately, the resources currently available to students who are interested in using paper airplanes for a science fair projects are lacking. They either have too little or bad information on the science part, or they can get too deep in the science part for students in the science fair age group. This includes trying to do too much while leaving out the fun part - lots of designs to try.
My purpose is to try to fill some of that gap. I want to create a site that is of value to the true student, yet, is not so filled with facts that the person just looking for something fun gets lost trying to find the airplanes. This site was started on 12-23-07 and is going to go through a lot of changes to get to the point of meeting its goal.
For now I have broken my site into seven main categories on paper airplanes. I also have a plan to research out and provide more educational links to various government and school sites.
Basic Paper Airplane Facts - General information, history, and directions for trimming your plane. If you have any problems with getting your planes to fly check this section!
Folded Paper Airplane Designs - Directions for folding my designs. I have over fifty designs and will be updating this section a lot.
Classic Paper Airplane Designs - Directions for folding some of my favorite classic planes.
Glued Paper Airplane Designs - Print these on card stock or poster board and glue them up for some heavy duty paper airplane models. These are my own designs but some were inspired by planes I have seen in the past. I will try to give credit the best I can. Soon, I hope to add a section on airplane design that will teach design principles used in both paper airplanes as well as full size passenger planes.
Extra Science Fair Projects - Other projects that can use common materials to build tools and other accessories for a good science fair presentation. Updated 02/04/08
Designing Paper Airplanes - Tips and Techniques to help turn knowledged gained in the aerodynamic sections into practical paper airplane design skills.
Advanced Paper Airplane Aerodynamic Information - Some information on Aerodynamics for the really interested or potential science fair student. Also some fun aerodynamic demos here. Everyone should at least check it out. Text Updated 02/05/08
Additional Paper Airplane Resource Links - Links to learning more about paper airplanes and aerodynamics. Some of these links will be repeated from other pages through the site. But, for quick reference I wanted to add a single resource page.
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