If a plane is made with printer paper will it fly farther then cardstock paper and construction paper?

Answer 1

It will fly better if you build it with construction paper.In my study I found that the paper airplane with greater mass (the construction paper) will fly farther. The weight doesn't have much at all to do with it. With more mass, the airplane has more potential energy. Potential energy is converted into kinetic energy, or speed. More potential energy means more kinetic energy. Kinetic energy is equal to lift, and lift is equal to a greater flight distance. I am doing a Science Fair project on this. I'm very sure that I know what I'm talking about.

But the construction paper will weigh it down so if it were me, then I would go with the computer paper. But other factors that also affect the flight of a paper airplane are; the way that you throw it, and how aerodynamic your design is, so keep this in mind.

Answer 2

I agree with Sleepoverpartygirl for the most part. Something I will add, though, is that the different weights of paper (meaning the weight of the bond) will offer different amounts of rigidity to the completed paper airplane. This makes a difference because as it flies through the air, it must logically endure the continuous head-on collision with the wind. If you look at the aircraft with a high speed camera, you will find that the "wings" of the aircraft are fluttering due to the turbulence generated by the airflow above and below the wings. The more rigid the paper, the less fluttering there is and the more stable the flight becomes. More stability leads to farther flight distance.

Now having said that, there is a point at which the paper's weight and/or thickness tends to be a negative factor. For example, cardstock or construction paper should perform better than notebook paper but any will perform better than cardboard folded in the same fashion. All this has to do with physics and the principles of lift, drag, and gravity. The fourth principle of thrust, of course, comes from the amount of energy expended by you at the initial toss.

Also, something else to notice is that different designs of wings are better at different speeds, so you might try different designs to see what works best for you. For proof of this, compare the designs of wings for slower propeller-driven aircraft as compared to subsonic passenger jets and supersonic fighter jets. Look at how they are positions, whether they are swept back from root to tip, and the design of their cross-section (e.g. a lop-sided teardrop or a diamond shape). While these are all designed to fly much faster and in very different conditions than paper airplanes, the concept is the same: different shapes of wings perform differently. For your conditions, you might be able to use a wing that lets you throw with little effort that sails nearly beeline straight for a long distance. Do some looking online and I am sure that you can find the ideal design for what you desire.