My Paper Airplane / Mein Papierflugzeug

Short: A week ago I had to build a paper airplane. This is about what I knew, what I wish I had known, and what I learned.

• Kurzfassung (deutsch)

  Vor einer Woche war ich auf einer Post-Covid-Hochzeitsnachfeier eingeladen. Als Spiel für die Gäste wurden A4 Blätter ausgeteilt und man bekam den Auftrag ein Papierflugzeug zu basteln. Ziel war es anschließend, dieses, aus einer Entfernung von 2,5-3 Metern durch einen Ring (30-40 cm Durchmesser) zu werfen. Jeder hatte fünf Versuche und die Braut notierte, wie viele Erfolge jeder Gast verzeichnen konnte. Es ging also um viel!

  Aus den 50-70 Papierflugzeugen, welche in kürzester Zeit auf der Feier gefaltet wurde, konnte ich keine zwei Modelle finden, welche gleich gefaltet waren. Die Gäste, welche zuerst geworfen hatten, wurden von anderen PartybesucherInnen zu ihren Erfahrungen befragt. Jeder – wirklich jeder – stellte Hypothesen auf, was den nun einen guten Papierflieger ausmachte. Und bei der schieren Menge an verschiedenen Konstruktionen blieb keine der Hypothesen ungetestet. Niemand konnte Wissen vortäuschen! Wenn deine Idee falsch war, zeigte sich das sofort. Wenn sie gut war auch – und das wurde dann auch schnell in anderen Papierfliegern nachkonstruiert. Es war wie eine kleine Wissenschaftssimulation.

  Ich begann damit, mir die Anforderungen an das Papierflugzeug genauer anzuschauen. Die Distanz war nicht zu lang. Der Ring nicht zu groß und auf Schulterhöhe. Ich sah mir an, wie der erste Gast warf und sah, dass deren Papierflugzeug Probleme hatte, einen gerade Kurs zu halten, und auch, dass das Flugzeug nicht wirklich ins Gleiten kam.

  (An dieser Stelle ist im englischen Text das Foto meines Fliegergrundrisses)

  Während meines Kindergartenpraktikums während meiner Schulzeit hatte ich viele Papierflieger gefaltet. Daher hatte ich schon eine gute Vorstellung wie ich es anstellen wollte. Der „Kopf” des Fliegers sollte schwerer sein als der Rumpf, die Flügel sollten vorne am Flugzeug höher liegen und hinten am Flugzeug tiefer, und das Flugzeug sollte eine Art Finne haben, welche die Fluglinie stabilisieren sollte. Der Papierflieger sollte zudem nicht zu breit sein, um nicht am Ring hängen zu bleiben, und nicht zu lang, um strukturell stabiler zu bleiben.

  Wie bei vielen wichtigen Themen unserer Zeit, gibt es auch zum Papierfliegerfalten einblickreiche Literatur! Als ich am Tag nach der Feier einen Familienbesuch antrat, dachte ich bereits daran diesen Artikel zu verfassen. Als ich mit meiner Schwester darüber sprach, drückte sie mir lachend ein Buch zum Papierfliegerbasteln aus der Privatbibliothek meines Schwagers in die Hand. Über dem gemeinsamen Flugzeugfalten vergaß ich schließlich, mir das Buch auszuleihen, so konnte ich mich hier nicht tiefer ausleihen. Für die Interessierten unter euch, die ISBN des Buches: 978-3-940486-25-7 . Allerdings fand ich im Bücherschatz meines besten Freundes ein weiteres Buch über Papierflieger von Collins (2013), welches ich mir nun kurz borgte (ISBN: 978-1-60774-388-0).

A week ago I was invited to a friends post-covid-marriage celebration. As a game to engage the guests, the hosts presented an airplane challenge. Everyone was given a sheet of A4 paper and the task to have it fly through a hoop (about 30-40 cm in diamater) from a distance of aproximately 2,5-3 meters. It had to be a plane – so no balling up the paper and calling it “an UFO”. Every guest had five throws and the bride counted the number of successes and noted them down.The stakes were high!

It was comical, how, among 50-70 guests, no two airplanes were from the same build. Everyone had their own design. The first people to throw were interviewed for their experiences. Even the most non-academic participants stated hypotheses on what should be considered. And with so many different models and testing taking place at real time, these hypotheses also were confirmed or denied at once. No faking knowledge! If you had a stupid idea, it showed instantly and vice versa.

I started with looking at the “tasks” the planes should perform. The distance was short, there was little wind, the ring was not too big and also at about my shoulder hight. I looked at the first guests to throw and saw that their airplanes didn’t stay on course or didn’t catch the air in a way they could float.

Flattened after the fact: these are the folds of the plane.

I had build paper airplanes for kids during my school internship at the kindergarden, so I had some concepts. The head of the plane should be heavier, the wings should be higher toward the front, and lower toward the back of the plane, and I wanted the plane to have a fin, helping it to stay on course. Also I did not want the plane to be too wide or too long. If it was too wide, chances were that it would clip the ring and maybe not make it through. It would also force me to throw more accurately. If the plane was too long, it would seem to lose stability.

As with many important things, there is also literature on building paper airplanes! When visiting family the day after, I was already thinking about writing this article and spoke to my sister about my plane. She stood up smiling and went off to go get a manual of my brother in law’s about paper airplanes. We went through it and build some models. Sadly I forgot to lend me the book and couldn’t delve deeper but the ISBN for the book is: 978-3-940486-25-7 in case you want to check it out. I did go digging for more literature on paper airplanes however, and my amazing best friend, abviously, also had a book on paper airplanes by Collins (2013), which he lend me for a quick read (ISBN: 978-1-60774-388-0).

Skimming through Collins (2013) book after the fact, gave me insights as to why my experiences with paper airplanes were correct. But at that moment, I didn’t have time. I needed to build. When trying to keep the plane short, I folded the long axis in half, and when trying to fold the “nose” of the plane I had one side be poking out the fold in the middle. I didn’t want the body to be taller, so I used this lip standing out, as a fin. I had seen some engineers at the party fold the back of the body inward, and thinking this would reduce turbulence I did the same. But I folded it in a way to five me a second find at the back. From real-life airplanes I remembered the wing tips to be bent for structural and flight stability, so I also did this. Additionally I bent a small part at the back of these wing wips outward to have the wings “rest” more on the air and push inward so the middle fold would stay together better. In a last second hack I tried to “glue” the middle fold a little with a currant from the cold punch at the buffet. And then I was up to throw.

But first lets have a look at the build. When building paper airplanes Collins (2013) points out that there are two main things you have to think of and design for. The center of lift (CoL) and the center of gravity (CoG) and how they interact. I designed the CoG to be set towards the front of the plane, and the CoL is influenced by the wings and tends to be further towards the back. As such, it was important that the wings had a slight angle, so the force pulling on the CoL would couteract gravity pulling at the CoG straight down. If these forces balance each other, a larger distance between the CoG and the CoL will stabilize the plane, as the CoG steers the plane through the air and creates momentum, once the energy of the initial throw is exhausted. Collins (2013) also points out that the ration between wing span and the length of the wing is important for gliding, structural integrety, and flight stability. This also interacts with the distance of the CoL and the CoG as a wider wing span increases the gliding but the more area of the wings is set further to the back, the more the CoL moves to the back. Collins (2013) affirms the “fin-hypothesis”.

So I stepped up to the line! So far, NOONE had had a perfect record of five out of five, and only one guest had managed four out of five. I was the last to go, as behind me some guests wanted to go a second – unrated – time to see if they could improve their technique or models. And with the first throw, I had a horrible lesson tought to me! I had looked at the task, at what the others had done. I had learned from other builds successes and weaknesses, I had desgined every fold on my plane and there was  thought in every crease of my construct. But I had no time for a crucial last step. I had not tested how the plane behaved when throwing!

My first throw – moking me of this hubris! – was cought at the lower part of the ring, bounding off, just short of going through. However, the whole flight was promising. It was stable, straight, went exactly where my lower arm had pointed. We all saw that this was a good build! My second throw went clean through, so did my third, and my fourth! Unclear if it was the last throw carrying the plane into the hedge, or fate blowing a taunting gust of air (read this in a melodramatic voice in your head), but the last throw had the plane veer shortly infront of the ring and miss.

So instead of potential glory. Which I – to this day – see as the potential this plane had. I had a 8 way shared second place. Which actually surprised me. It seemed as if folding a paper airplane was not nearly as easy as it sounds.

So maybe there is even a lesson to be learned apart from how to build paper airplanes. Even stuff that seems easy, can be challanging. And even though all of these airplanes could be identified as such, and all were constructs, some of these constructs were better than others. One day, this airplane post will inspire an essay I will publish on my essay blog, on social constructs.

References / Literatur:

Krone, D. (2009). Papierflieger Falten. 9783940486257

Collins, J. M. (2013). The New World Champion Paper Airplane Book. 9781607743880