How to make a paper airplane.

Paper Airplane Record Rules

1. The aircraft must be constructed from one sheet of A 4 paper of less than 100 gsm.

2. The paper can be cut, but any piece of paper cut off cannot be rejoined.

3. The use of standard light-duty clear cellulose adhesive tape of width 25 mm and total length 30 mm is permitted on any one aircraft. The tape may be cut up into smaller pieces but shall be used to hold down folds only and shall not be layered, joined together, used as a weight, used for laminating a surface nor used as a control device such as a trim-tab or flap. Glue, paperclips or staples are not permitted.

Research on paper airplane

An idea from Jason Smith interpreting the paper airplane record rule number 2 that you cannot completely cut of a piece of the paper airplane and then re-attach it again!

Look at how to make a paper airplane without ever removing the tail from the plane:

Paper airplane record: how to keep the tail attached

• red lines are where the plane needs to be cut
• green lines are where
  the tail is folded
• the brown spot is the pivoting point for getting the tail into the plane. This brown dot is to the left as far as half of the tail’s width (a distance equal to the distance from one green line to the next).

There will most likely be excess paper on the side of the tail which is inserted into the plane:

• fold the paper over: this will add weight to the nose of the plane OR
• cut the paper: this prevents the additional weight from being added to the nose.

Leave a comment if you have a paper airplane record!

I do travel a lot by plane. That’s all easy to understand for grownups, but the kids in our family want to know why uncle always takes airplanes and why they cannot join?

I try to explain by words, but kids want to play

So I am setting up this website how to make paper airplanes. Each time I am on holiday, I will make sure I add one new paper airplane to this blog. That’s a good distraction if I cannot fall asleep in the airplane

Anyway, it’s a legacy of my father who was a real craftsman and made all our toys by hand: the amount of newspapers we changed into paper airplanes is kind of uncountable.

So father: this one is for you: how to make a paper airplane!