Paper Planes

                                The Science of Paper Planes

Making a paper plane

Q. What are the forces acting on a paper plane?

There are 4 forces acting on a paper plane.

Thrust pushes the plane forward

Lift pushes the plane up.

Gravity (or Weight) pulls the plane down.

Drag pushes the plane backwards.

Challenge:  To find a paper plane that beats the rest of the class.

Aim: I want to find a paper plane design that can fly the furthest and beat the rest of my class.

World Record for Longest Flight

Step 1:

Step 2:

Step 3:

Step 4:

How can you change the forces from above to make the airplane go further?

• Need to increase the thrust - to do this, i will throw harder.
• Reduced drag 
• Change air flow - add ailerons

1. Write up the experiment using the Scientific method
2. Record your findings on the chart
3. Take a photo of all your planes and upload them onto your blog
4. Graph the results in a bar graph.

Plane	Distance
Glider	3.50 Meters
Jet	2 Meters
Cruiser	6.60 Meters
Round wing	2.8 Meters

Write up your findings and a conclusion.