THE STUDY OF THE DIFFERENT DISTANCES PAPER AIRPLANES FLY WITH DIFFERENT LENGTH WINGS

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1 THE STUDY OF THE DIFFERENT DISTANCES PAPER AIRPLANES FLY WITH DIFFERENT LENGTH WINGS Preston Gabson Cary Academy ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to determine how far different types of airplanes flew under certain conditions. The process of flight is controlled by such natural forces as gravity, lift, drag and thrust. In this experiment, three different types of paper airplanes were made with regular rule paper and with construction paper in the control experiment. Then the paper airplanes were thrown in the air to see how far each paper airplane design flew. It was discovered that the dart design airplane flew farther than the other designs. The likely reason for this result is the longer wingspan and the stream line body, that meant less drag and more thrust which helped the dart paper airplane fly farther than the other designs. INTRODUCTION For a while, mankind has been trying to fly but achieving flight on air has not been an easy task. It was not until the year 1903 that two brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright (the Wright brothers) built the very first airplane that flew on air, right here in North Carolina. It has always been difficult to achieve flight on air because air is a physical substance which has weight. It is a mixture of different gases such as Oxygen, Carbon Dioxide and Nitrogen. The air around us has molecules which are constantly moving and it is this movement of molecule that creates air pressure needed for flight. Moving air has a force strong enough to lift objects such as kites and balloons up and down. However long or sustained flights are only possible when four forces drag, gravity, thrust, and lift come together in balanced. Pressure is very important for anything with wings including real airplanes or paper airplanes to fly. Fast-moving air on top of the wings has a lower pressure than slow-moving air under the wings. The pressure of the air is therefore greater beneath the wing than above it. This difference in air-pressure forces the wing upward. This force is called a lift. This is what gets the plane off the ground. Thrust is the forward movement of the plane. The initial thrust comes from the power of the engine in a real plane or the muscles of the "pilot" as the paper airplane is launched into the air. After this, airplanes are really gliders, converting altitude to forward motion. Consider also what happens with hot air balloons. Hot air expands and spreads out and it becomes lighter than cool air. When a balloon is full of hot air it rises up because the hot air expands inside the balloon. When the hot air cools and is let out of the balloon the balloon comes back down. In building the paper airplane, most of the concepts were learned about how things fly. Although the paper airplane is just an origami, it has all the feature of a real airplane. For example, the cross-section of the wing has a shape called airfoil. As the wing moves through the air, the air divides to pass around the wing. The airfoil is curved so that air passing above the wing moves faster than the air passing beneath. Fast-moving air has a 1

2 lower pressure than slow-moving air. This design should help my paper plane behave like a real plane. In a similar experiment conducted by Dzu Thuc to determine how far different types of paper airplanes flew. He hypothesized that a straight nosed paper airplanes made with normal light weight paper will fly farther than a bull nose designed paper airplane built with the same material. He tested his theory by building two origami airplanes. One with a straight nose and another with a bull nose. Using a meter stick and timer, measured how far each airplane travelled when thrown from a given distance and concluded that the straight nose or regular design flew farther than the bullnose because the way the bull nose was folded created more air resistance which made it harder to fly. He was not surprised by this result because his result was similar to previous experiments by Sam Stanforth also from Cary Academy. The four types of forces the paper airplanes needs to fly MATERIALS AND METHODS The materials used to conduct this experiment were rule writing paper, construction (thick) paper, microwave, table fan, a ruler, meter sticks, a tablet computer, a table, a counter, a piece of tape, stapler and a glue sticks. For the first set of experiments three different design types of paper airplanes: the dart, the glider and the flyer were made. Each was designed to react differently to air pressure and wind speed. The Dart was designed with long wings and slender, aero dynamic body. The glider has long wings but short, stocky body while the Flyer has short wings and long body. The three paper planes were thrown individually from the same distance and allowed to fly and land on their own. A measurement was then taken using the meter stick and recorded to see how far each paper plane design flew. 2

3 For the second experiment, a paper airplane was built out of three different paper materials, a rule paper, construction paper and white sheet paper. The planes were thrown individually from the same location and allowed to land on their own. Then a measurement was taken using the meter stick and recorded to see how far each plane flew. For the third experiment, all three airplane designs - the dart, the glider and the flyer paper airplane made out of construction paper was left in a microwave for 0 seconds, 5 seconds, 10 seconds and 15 seconds to see if there was any impact from heat on their ability to fly. As previously done, all three planes were thrown individually from the same position and allowed to fly and land on their own. Then a measurement was taken using the meter stick and recorded to see how far each plane flew. For the fourth and final experiment using only the dart, the wings was folded to achieve three different wing spans which measured out to be 5 centimeters, 6.5 centimeters and 8 centimeters. At each wing length, the plan was thrown from the same position and allowed to fly freely and land on its own. Then a measurement was taken using the meter stick, as in previous experiments. The distance travelled with each of the three wing spans was recorded to see which one travelled farthest. A fan s wind blowing a paper airplane a distance 3

4 Diistance Flown(cm) RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Measurement of wing(cm) Figure 1. The length of wings of a paper airplane The 11 cm wing of the paper airplane was found to fly farther than the other lengths of wings for the paper airplane. The distance from wing tip to wing tip is called wing span, and the distance from the front to the back of the wing is called the chord. The ratio of wing span to average chord is called "aspect ratio", and is an important characteristic of wings. Although high aspect ratio wings reduce drag, also require better building materials. The low strength of paper does not allow the use of high aspect ratio wings. 4

5 Distance Flown(cm) Distance Flown(cm) Dart Glider Flyer Type of Paper Airplane Figure 2. The distance flown by different types of paper airplanes The dart paper airplane flew the farther than the glider paper airplane and the flyer paper airplanes when thrown. Being unpowered, a glider cannot travel fast and so has long straight wings that produce high lift at very low speed. A flyer airplane has short wings so it has lots of drag through the air so it won t go as far. A dart paper airplane can have long wings and has a body that slices through the air which doesn t give it much weight Oringinal Glider Flyer Type of Paper airplane Figure 3. The distance flown by different types of paper airplanes The glider paper airplane made from construction paper flew farther than a flyer and a dart paper airplane made from construction. Paper airplanes usually have short "stubby" wings,. Short wings don t have a lot of air pulling against them which doesn t give it much control and it drags through the air so it won t go as far. Planes that push a lot of air, like a hand does when it faces the side it is known to have a lot of "drag," or resistance, when moving through the air. 5

6 Distane Flown(cm) Distance Flown(cm) When a paper plane flies, to go as far as possible it would need as little drag as possible. A second force that planes have to overcome to go farther is "gravity." The paper airplane's weight needs to a minimum to help fight against gravity's pull to the ground. called "low aspect ratio" wings. With a thicker material or paper, it is easier to make planes with high aspect ratio wings Time in Microwave(sec) Figure 4. The time the paper airplane was in the microwave then thrown The paper airplane that was warmed up for 15 seconds flew the farther than the paper airplanes that were heated up for 0, 5 and 10 seconds. The Universe is made up of matter and energy. Matter is made up of atoms and molecules (groupings of atoms) and energy causes the atoms and molecules to always be in motion either bumping into each other or vibrating back and forth. The motion of atoms and molecules creates o form of energy called heat of thermal energy which is present in all matter. Even in the coldest voids of space, matter still has a very small but still measurable amount of heat energy Wind Speeds 6

7 Figure 5. The winds speeds that blew the paper airplanes a distance The wind speed at 3 blew the paper airplane farther than the wind speeds at 0, 1 and 2 that blew the paper airplane. Wind is the flow of gases on a large scale. On Earth, wind consists of the bulk movement of air. In outer space, solar wind is the movement of gases or charged particles from the sun through space, while planetary wind is the outgassing of light chemical elements from a planet's atmosphere into space. Winds are commonly classified by their spatial scale, their speed, and the types of forces that cause them, the regions in which occurred, and their effect. CONCLUSION It was determined that the longer the wings are, the farther the paper airplanes would fly and the more it would glide when thrown in the air. This seems to be necessary to know because the longer the wings are, the wind will force against it making it go farther but not faster and the short wings make the paper airplane move faster but it doesn t go as far. My hypothesis was wrong because it was thought that the shorter the wings were the farther it would go, even though it moves faster it still doesn t go as far as long wings do. A future experiment that would be interesting to propose would be measuring the distance paper airplanes with different size wings but made out of a different type of paper or a different type of paper airplane. CITATIONS Needham, Mass. Forces of motion Prentice Hall science explorer, Blackburn, Ken. Kids Paper Airplane Book Juvenile literature Press, Scholastic. What makes airplanes fly [Accessed Feb 4, 2013] Rachel, Peletz. The Science of Paper Airplanes Feb 24, [Accessed Feb 8, 2013] EBSCO Middle Research Center Airplanes [Accessed Feb 9, 2013] Dzu, Thuc The Study of how far different paper airplanes can fly. Cary: Cary Academy, 2012,. 7

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