Paper Plane Project

Scott Leonard

In my project I…

• Created several paper aeroplanes• Measured them• Threw them• Measured different aspects of the

throws; distance flown, time in air …etc…

• Repeated to find the averages

Measuring Distance

For this experiment I threw the aeroplanes

• Measured the distance in metres and centimetres.

• Repeated this five times to get more information from the throws.

• I repeated this for all the aeroplanes I made.

Measuring Distance

Plane 1 Plane 1 Average Plane 2 Plane 2 Average

Averages – Plane 1

• The Mean– The mean is what

you get when you add up all the values and then divide by the number of values you have got.

– 7.69 metres

• The Median– The median is the

middle value– 7.52 metres

There wasn’t much difference between the mean and median average results. This was caused by the low range of data gathered.

Averages – Plane 2

• The Mean– The mean distance

for plane 2 was 2.29 metres.

• The Median– The median

distance for plane 2 was 2.35 meters.

There wasn’t much difference between the mean and median average results. This was also caused by the low range of data gathered.

Aspect Ratio• The aspect ratio is the ratio of the width of a shape

to its height when the width is larger than the height.

• Aspect ratio is wing span divided by wing chord.• Planes with a higher aspect ratio will glide better

and fly further than planes with a low aspect ratio.• Planes with a high aspect ratio include the

Bombardier Dash and the Glaser-Dirks glider• Planes with a low aspect ratio include Concorde.

The Bombardier Dash has a high aspect ratio

Aspect Ratio

• Plane 1 - had a wing span of 2.35cm and a wing height 5.70cm.

I divided the wing span by the wing height to get an aspect ratio of 0.41.

• Plane 2 - had a wing span of 1.82cm and a wing height 5.56cm.

I divided the wing span by the wing height to get an aspect ratio of 0.33.

• The plane with the higher aspect ratio flew further as expected.

Aspect Ratio

Aspect ratio: 0.41 Aspect ratio: 0.33

Plane 1 Plane 2

Speed• I carried out the experiment by throwing both of

the planes five times and measuring how far they went and how long they took to reach the floor.

• I measured the distance they flew in metres and the time they took in seconds.

• To find the speed I used distance divided by time.• The first plane’s average speed was 6.98 m/s and

the second plane’s average speed was 2.40 m/s.• The second plane was expected to be faster as it

had the lower aspect ratio but it didn’t. This was most likely cause by the folds being uneven.

Checked work

• I checked by using

– Hand calculations of the total and average flight time

– Calculator

• Errors I fixed were– To the design, the

plane wasn’t even.

– Measurements taken were slightly off, I checked them, found that they were incorrect and measured again.

– Corrected average calculations

Rounding

• I measured to the nearest– Centimetre, 0.01 centimetres and 0.01 seconds.

• I worked these out to the nearest– Centimetre when measuring height and distance.

– 0.01 centimetres when measuring wing span and wing height.

– 0.01 seconds when timing.

– 0.01 when measuring the averages.

– 0.01 meters per second when measuring the speed.

The site I used

• http://www.paperairplanes.co.uk/• Includes a description, images and

sometimes a video on how to make the paper aeroplanes.

• The most popular planes on the site were the paper helicopter, dragon paper airplane and the trapezium plane.

Tips for best performance

• Fold carefully• Make sure it’s well balanced• Make adjustments, e.g. add blue

tack, fold the wings upwards• Give your plane a high aspect ratio• Make the plane heavier at the nose

Sources

• http://www.paperairplanes.co.uk/

• http://www.paperairplanes.co.uk/

peteplan.php#instructions

• http://www.paperairplanes.co.uk/

shadow.php#instructions

• http://www.paperairplanes.co.uk/swallow.php