9. My Final paper plane! (Flower?)

My final paper plane design. Either with 4 petals or 5, it spins down from a height beautifully, although the speed is different. Plane with 5 petals flies slower and spins less, since the weight at the bottom is divided into 5. However, it's better if you like to look at a slower motion to see the flight pattern of the flower. I personally prefer 4 though.

I learnt that leaving one side sharp makes it fly better from the propeller images.

It spins way faster.

8. Folding paper flowers

I tried folding some paper flowers now. Here are my set of paper flowers. (Feels like I'm starting the whole project over again.)

I started off with folding the existing ones. (These two below.)

And I was amazed at how paper flowers spin so well and so beautiful. And flying paper flowers, I found that bigger the petal, better the spin. The first one flied well enough for me to stick to it and develop further.

These two below are customised flowers. I struggle to find the way to change the existing flower design to make it my own, so I decided to fold each petal and stick them together.

7. Propeller, Flower imagery

Pictures of propeller reminded me of flowers.

they seem to have the same shape in whole. I searched for a few pictures of flowers and some really similar ones came up.

6. Experimentation 2

Feeling curious about how the maple seeds fly, I made a shape that's similar to them, giving some weight at the bottom and a side, flied them. It worked well, flied in the way the shape was supposed to. So I tried to gain stablility by attaching more seeds together and they all flied pretty well making this flappy spinning flightpath. (uploading movies soon.)

In an article I read, it said maple seeds has the basic logic that's applied to helicopters.

So I tried making a wing with a plastic sheet and it flied well, firmly spinning, better than papers.

5. Maple Seeds

After the interim crit, I researched on maple seeds Max has mentioned.

Maple seeds, of which shape is designed to fly far has a relation to the idea of spinning. In fact, it has what to be the best elements to fly in the way I want my plane want to fly. It was fascinating to see how the nature has all the elements of what we constantly seek for.

According to an article, the logic behind them is this.

"By swirling, maple seeds generate a tornado-like vortex that sits atop the front leading edge of the seed as they spin slowly to the ground. This leading-edge vortex lowers the air pressure over the upper surface of the maple seed, effectively sucking the wing upward to oppose gravity, giving it a boost. The vortex doubles the lift generated by the seeds compared to nonswirling seeds."

"When maple seeds become airborne they pick up downward speed and start to spin around their center of gravity, which is located in the nut. This spinning motion is induced by the airflow around the seed as it descends to the ground. Because the spinning, helicopter-like, motion of the maple seeds arises automatically, it is called autorotation. The autorotation slows down the descent of the seed such that the seed can be carried further away from the tree by wind. (Credit: David Lentink)"

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090611142356.htm

4. Poetry / The aim of paper plane

I was thinking what kind of plane I want to make, and it made me think the purpose of the paper plane, as in initial purpose of its existence. It is quite obvious, simply because we dream of flying. The vaguely remembered scenes from childhood brought back the dreams and hopes I had when I was a kid.

I found this random poem one blogger wrote. I think it's beautiful. A thought hit me reading this poem. Couldn't smoking be replaced with flying paper planes?

Poetry: Paper Plane

Paper plane paper plane

How soft and light you are!
Hope to ride you in the air
Up to the high clouds fair,
And reach abode of heavenly realm.

Paper plane paper plane
How soft and light you are!
Gracefully flying your wings’ pair
Look as if to a land rare
Yet, you are always there.
Mission is what this plane bears

So let this paper plane
Lightly tapping one’s sorrowed heart,
Carrying away all despairs.

http://swordfury.wordpress.com/

3-1. Experimentation

I dropped this plane from the top of staircase and it made beautiful flightpath spinning down to the ground. The logic in this is the corners folded hit the air and the plane flips, I think.

3-2. Experimentation tip

1. Ensure that your wings are dihedral. Dihedral wings fold upward, not downward. Look at your paper plane from the front or back; if the wings are pointing down to the ground, readjust them so that they point upward.

2. Make sure the plane is stable. Stability in aeronautics doesn't mean that the plane will come apart; stability means that the plane has a center of gravity at a neutral point where the plane will return to if disturbed. A nose-heavy or back-heavy paper plane will most likely fly for only a few seconds. For the common dartlike paper airplane, the plane is stable if the neutral point is half the distance from the nose to the tail. Balance the plane on a finger or small object. If it doesn't balance at that central point, readjust the weight by refolding the wings or nose.

3. Throw your plane as high as you can to maximize time in the air.

4. Throw the plane as fast as possible. Ken Blackburn, the Guinness world record holder for the longest paper plane flight of 27.6 seconds (as of June 2010), estimates the plane leaves his hand at 60 mph.

http://www.ehow.com/how_6601305_make-fly-over-10-seconds.html#ixzz1Gfuniu8K

2. 25 Existing Paper Planes

1. Science Museum Visit

I visited Science Museum to the flight section to get a sense of what might planes look like. There were wider range of flight types than I thought, from airships to paragliders. etc.

helicopters

flight path of a bird

airships

propellas

First Flight Project

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Welcome to Yoomi's first flight project blog.