The Secrets of the World-Record-Setting Paper Plane

It looks really simple, but it?s the most technical plane I?ve ever made.

I was down at Scaled Composites in Mojave, Calif., testing paper airplanes in their new spaceship hangar. What was happening was that air was adhering farther back on the plane as it slowed down, and the air was coming off the wings at different places depending on how fast the plane was flying. I had never thought about that in terms of paper planes before. Initially, I didn?t really know how to use that information.

But eventually it came to me, and the plane relies on a couple of things to do this trick: When you throw a plane really hard, you want a flat dihedral angle [the angle at which wings are attached to the body of the plane] because a flat dihedral angle causes less drag at higher speeds, like at the launch. More dihedral gives better stability during gliding, which happens at slower speeds.

So I used that design?having a flat angle on the nose that moves up another 10 degrees on the wingtips, with the idea of air leaving the wing at different points based on airspeed?to create the glider plane.

Source: http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/aviation/diy-flying/the-secrets-of-the-world-record-setting-paper-plane-7013184?src=rss

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