Challenge your design skills to improve your kite's stability in the air. Science Friday. Latest Episode. Activity Type: Engineering activity , Family activity. Test Out Some Variations Like all planes, paper airplanes experience four forces: gravity, thrust, lift, and drag.
Airplanes experience four forces in flight: Lift, thrust, drag, and gravity. Credit: Jennifer Powers Get creative and adjust various aspects of your plane. Here are a few ideas to get you started: 1: Increase Lift As the plane travels, air moves quickly over the top of the wings.
Design Your Own Airplane Put your design skills to the test with a paper airplane flight challenge! The Challenge Gather members of your household and see who can produce the model plane that flies farthest. Reflection Questions 1. Credit: Airbus Related Links Excited to learn more about the aerodynamics behind paper planes? Start with some advice from the world record holder for longest paper airplane flight: Aerodynamics Explained by World Record Paper Airplane Designer Looking to become an experienced airplane folder?
Meet the Writer. When the dart flies through the air, it uses its narrow wingspan and long fuselage with the center of gravity positioned near the center of the plane to slice through the air molecules. It's very sturdy and flies very straight. The problem is it can only fly about as far as you can chuck it before gravity takes over. But once you put some aerodynamic principles to the test, you can find clever ways to make the plane go farther.
What if we tucked in some of the layers to eliminate some of the drag, and expanded the wings to provide a little more lift, so that the plane can glide across the finish line rather than crash into it and explode. So what do we need to make this plane fly better? More lift, of course. But what is lift exactly?
For a long time, the Bernoulli principle was thought to explain lift. It states that within an enclosed flow of fluid, points of higher fluid speeds have less pressure than points of slower fluid speeds. Wings have a low pressure on top and faster moving air on top. So Bernoulli, right? Bernoulli works within a pipe and enclosed environment. Faster moving air in this case does not cause low pressure atop the wing. So what does? To understand that, we're gonna have to take a really close look at how air moves around an object.
There's something called the Coanda effect, which states that airflow will follow the shape of whatever it encounters. Let's look at a simple demonstration of these two things. Two ping pong balls, right? Faster moving air between them, check. The ping pong balls move together. Must be a low pressure, right? That's where it gets confusing. So as the air moves between the ping pong balls, it follows the shape of the ping pong balls and gets deflected outward.
That outward shove pushes the ping pong balls together, inward. What we're talking about here is Newton's third law. Equal and opposite reaction. So it's not Bernoulli that causes the ping pong balls to move together.
It's that air being vectored outward, shoving the ping pong balls together inward. Let's see how that works on a real wing. Notice how the airflow over the wing ends up getting pushed downward at the back of the wing. That downward shove pushes the wing upward, and that is lift. So, if the narrow wings on this dart aren't providing enough lift and the body of the plane is providing too much drag, what can we do?
Well, we'll need to design a plane with bigger wings that slips through the air easily. Let's take it to the next level. This is a plane I designed called the Phoenix Lock. Just 10 folds. It's called the Phoenix Lock because there's a tiny locking flap that holds all the layers together. And that's gonna get rid of one of the big problems we saw with the dart, where those layers are flopping open in flight.
Now, what you'll see here in the finished design is that we've done two things, made the wings bigger and brought the center of gravity forward a little more, making the lift area behind the center of gravity bigger as well. It's a glider versus a dart. Normal planes have propulsion systems like engines that supply thrust. Gliders on the other hand need to engineer in a way to gain speed. And to do that, you need to trade height for speed.
Let's take a look at what's happening with the new design. With this center of gravity more forward on the plane, this plane will point nose down, allowing you to gain speed that's lost from drag. And then when the plane gains enough speed, just enough air to flex off of these tiny bends at the back of the plane to push the tail down, which lifts the nose up.
And that's how the plane achieves a balanced glide. What the bigger wing area does is allow for better wing loading. Now, wing loading, contrary to popular belief, is not how many wings you can stuff in your mouth before snot starts coming out of your nose. No, wing loading is really the weight of the whole plane divided by the lifting surface. In this case, the wings of the plane, not Buffalo wings.
High wing loading means the plane has to move much faster to lift the weight. Low wing loading means the plane can fly slower to lift the weight.
A force is something that pushes or pulls on something else. When you throw a paper plane in the air, you are giving the plane a push to move forward. That push is a type of force called thrust. While the plane is flying forward, air moving over and under the wings is providing an upward lift force on the plane. At the same time, air pushing back against the plane is slowing it down, creating a drag force.
The weight of the paper plane also affects its flight, as gravity pulls it down toward Earth. All of these forces thrust, lift, drag and gravity affect how well a given paper plane's voyage goes.
In this activity you will increase how much drag a paper plane experiences and see if this changes how far the plane flies. If you're flying your paper plane outside, such as in a field, try to do it when there isn't any wind. Fold carefully and make your folds as sharp as possible, such as by running a thumbnail or a ruler along each fold to crease it.
Do not bend up the tailing edge of the wings step 6 of the online folding instructions. This will be the starting line from which you'll fly the paper plane.
Did it fly very far? Each time before you throw the plane, make sure it is still in good condition that the folds and points are still sharp. When you toss it, place your toe on the line and try to launch the plane with a similar amount of force, including gripping it at the same spot.
Did it go about the same distance each time? These planes fly a slow and gentle flight. Start a Paper Airplane Contest in your school and prove just how far and how long your airplanes can fly. It's a fun way to learn about aerodynamics!
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