5 ms·

When I was a kid, the record we cared about was flight time, not distance. We'd build planes that would gently circle and throw them straight up in the air. D

by hashkb 9y ago

When I was a kid, the record we cared about was flight time, not distance. We'd build planes that would gently circle and throw them straight up in the air. Distance seems to have more to do with the arm, to me.

blktiger 9y ago
John Collins makes more than just distance paper airplanes. He has a nice TED talk about paper airplanes that I found interesting. (Not sure what I think about his opinion of Bernoulli's law though.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2n4xq0DnbHI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2n4xq0DnbHI
swiley 9y ago
100% agree with this! Flight time is way more fun than distance.
glaberficken 9y ago
I grew up in an 10 floor apartment building and I would just fold a few planes and throw them out the window. Now the interesting thing about a street with tall buildings is that on some perfect days the breeze forms these smooth updrafts along the building walls. My goal was get the paper plane to catch the updrafts and actually climb up from my 3rd floor to the top of the building. It was very rare, I must have tried 10s of different fold types but sometimes conditions would be just perfect and a particular plane would ride up in circles sometimes even clearing the top floor of the building and then glide down and land sometimes hundreds of meters away or even vanish from view. When I ran out of planes I would grab my bicycle and go out to recover as many of them possible, come back up and repeat... ...sweet times =)
truculation 9y ago
Has the solution been found? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKeQgjJYq9s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKeQgjJYq9s
JKCalhoun 9y ago
You reminded me of "The Great International Paper Airplane Book" (http://a.co/aCbN01n http://a.co/aCbN01n) .. what a classic. There is a section in the book on the plane that won the duration contest. More or less a rectangular wing as I recall with just enough forward mass to give it forward movement and just enough dihedral to keep it stable. Edit: found a page where the first image is of that record setting duration flight: http://www.codex99.com/design/the-paper-airplane-book.html http://www.codex99.com/design/the-paper-airplane-book.html
yorby 9y ago
2 different categories, that's all... they both could not compete with each other (more then likely).

by hashkb 9y ago

blktiger 9y ago

John Collins makes more than just distance paper airplanes. He has a nice TED talk about paper airplanes that I found interesting. (Not sure what I think about his opinion of Bernoulli's law though.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2n4xq0DnbHI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2n4xq0DnbHI

swiley 9y ago

100% agree with this! Flight time is way more fun than distance.

glaberficken 9y ago

I grew up in an 10 floor apartment building and I would just fold a few planes and throw them out the window. Now the interesting thing about a street with tall buildings is that on some perfect days the breeze forms these smooth updrafts along the building walls. My goal was get the paper plane to catch the updrafts and actually climb up from my 3rd floor to the top of the building. It was very rare, I must have tried 10s of different fold types but sometimes conditions would be just perfect and a particular plane would ride up in circles sometimes even clearing the top floor of the building and then glide down and land sometimes hundreds of meters away or even vanish from view. When I ran out of planes I would grab my bicycle and go out to recover as many of them possible, come back up and repeat... ...sweet times =)

truculation 9y ago

Has the solution been found? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKeQgjJYq9s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKeQgjJYq9s

JKCalhoun 9y ago

You reminded me of "The Great International Paper Airplane Book" (http://a.co/aCbN01n http://a.co/aCbN01n) .. what a classic. There is a section in the book on the plane that won the duration contest. More or less a rectangular wing as I recall with just enough forward mass to give it forward movement and just enough dihedral to keep it stable. Edit: found a page where the first image is of that record setting duration flight: http://www.codex99.com/design/the-paper-airplane-book.html http://www.codex99.com/design/the-paper-airplane-book.html

yorby 9y ago

2 different categories, that's all... they both could not compete with each other (more then likely).