What makes a paper plane fly?

Answer 1

The first thing that makes an airplane fly is air or aerodynamics, but simply its because the thin shape of a paper airplane makes it cut through the air, along with the air's resistance, which hardly effects it.

Secondly, drag and gravity. Drag means how much air is pushed by the movement of of the plane. Gravity is the pull downward toward the middle of the Earth, the less weight the effects your plane.

Next is thrust and lift. Thrust is the forward force of the paper plane. At first, you give it thrust by using your muscles on your arm to launch the plane. After that the plane depends on converting altitude into forward motion, or gliding.

Lift is when the air below the wing is pushing upward harder than the air above it, is pushing down. The difference in pressure is what makes the plane fly. The faster the air moves over the surface of the plane, the less pressure there is.

Combining and balance all these forces for long paper airplane flights.

Answer 2

It depends on how much force is applied on it to throw it into the air. the lower the weight of a thing lets it remain in the air for longer and at the end it will come down due to gravity power of the earth.

Answer 3

Paradoxically, all gliders like paper airplanes use their arch enemies -- gravity and drag -- to keep them afloat. Heck, being unpowered, that's all they have! Gliders trade the potential energy of height for the kinetic energy of forward motion. By accepting massive vertical drag, the glider redirects the acceleration of gravity into forward momentum.

Drag is caused by the resistance of the air. When a mass pushes through a volume of air, the air pushes back. If you carelessly throw a paper airplane with its underside forward, you can't expect it to fly, because the opposing drag will stop it dead. But this is a clue!

In normal flight, the same draggy wing surface faces down. Gravity pulls the plane downward, which creates an opposite reaction from the air beneath. The pressure difference between the underwing and above causes lift. Lift with a glider is just like drag, only it's in the direction you want it -- away from the ground.

A glider's surface area should be obscenely large, since more air will then be addressed per unit mass. The vertical drag (or lift, if you prefer) increases with the surface area of the wings, and somewhat with the weight of the plane itself. Although the force of gravity is still larger than the opposing force of the air beneath, a wide, flat plane will descend much more slowly than, say, a crumpled ball.

But large surface area is not enough for a good glider, otherwise a flat sheet of notebook paper would work just as well. It clearly does not; a piece of paper wobbles all over the place. Therefore, the second element a glider needs is stability. And lots of it.

For a start, folding the paper gives structural strength. This ensures the wings don't bend and go bonkers when a puff of air lightly taps them. A decent glider can be made with one crisp fuselage fold in the middle of the paper. Even though the wings are floppy, they are less so -- they are now 2 pieces of smaller width, which makes them stronger. Also, the separation caused by the fuselage straightens its flight tremendously. Again, the arch enemy of drag comes to the rescue by shearing across the fuselage and keeping it straight.

But we can do better. Tapering the wings in the traditional triangle shape allows for a smooth slice forward through the air. Tapers avoid eddies, wing flex, vortexes and chaos, because of the gradual amount of air volume it influences. Remember, the tail of the plane will fly through the same mass of air that the nose just did, so the nose better not mess with the rest of the plane's air supply.

But, there's a problem. Since the surface area is small at the nose now, the nose will receive less lift, which will cause it to dive forward due to the force of gravity.

To counteract this tendency to dive, either elevators can be slotted in the back of the plane, or, my preference: a small coin or paperclip can be taped inside the fuselage to balance its pitch. If you're lucky, you'll have a plane where a forward position of the counterweight will work to pitch it up. Wait... wha? It's possible because the counterweight applies more pressure downward on the tiny wings, which can make up for the pressure lost by tapering them.

A healthy center of gravity, besides structural strength, is the most important contributor to aircraft stability. If the center of gravity tends to point the plane in its optimum flying position, then the glider can fly itself!

Lastly, a good starter thrust is important, too. A slow plane will waste its pressure bubble sitting on top of the air, so good movement forward makes efficient use of the air.

A powered aircraft follows slightly different principles. For one thing, lift is created by the airfoil of the wing, and not so much by gravity. Angle of attack is lower because the extra engine power causes so much lift you sometimes don't want it. Body flexing is not so much of a problem since thicker materials can be used (and thus longer wingspan). And, advanced aerodynamics can be taken advantage of because of the larger power plant.

Answer 4

Although the question is vague, i can only think that you mean why paper floats in the breeze. This is simply because the amount of surface area for the paper has a large ratio to it's mass in other words it is light. And the reason it takes so long to float back down is because when it tries to go down air has to rush out from under it and up above it.

Answer 5

paper airplanes fly because of lift.