How to Make A Paper Airplane That FLIES FAR - Full Tutorial | WIRED

[Music] this plane is the super canard look at the design on this guy two sets of wings you got a forward wing get a rear wing here by angling the forward wing at a slightly higher angle of incidence than the main wing that is just tilting it up a little bit you can see the bends right there in that forward wing i'm tilting it up just a little bit with these upward bends two things cause a stall too high an angle of incidence or too slow of a speed now obviously if the plane's flying too slow you just don't develop enough air flow that will have the coanda effect to stick to the surface of the wing it's just going so slow that the airflow just kind of fails to form over the wing no lift plane falls out of the sky the other thing is that if you're angling too far upward with this wing here eventually it can't follow around the shape of the wing the airflow becomes disconnected and again we call that a stall the airflow you need air flow trailing off the back of the plane to shove the plane up to make lift so those are the two ways that your plane can lose lift with a stall too slow or too high an angle of incidence so what we do with this plane is really kind of clever we angle this little wing a little bit higher angle of incidence than the main wing so when it gets close to stalling the little wing will stall first drop the nose down and the main wing keeps flying so it's a stall resistant paper airplane one of the really cool features of this plane is that it starts with a modified version of a classic paper airplane base called a water bomb base i want to show you that base and then i'll walk you through the folding of the super canard here but the water bomb base idea very powerful you can make all kinds of planes with the water bomb base you can make this starfighter design starts with a water bomb base this really cool double decker plane it's called the uh interlock biplane it starts with a modified water bomb base water bomb base idea the twin jet starts with a water bomb base straight up water bomb base no modified water bomb base that's a straight water bomb base idea and this guy starts with a slightly modified water bomb base what the heck is a water bomb base i've said it so many times you must be going crazy okay so i'm going to start by making diagonal bolts taking the top and putting it against the side first this way and again i like to hold down the corner pivot those edges together and then sweep make a nice clean fold unfold that i'm going a little bit fast don't feel like you got to follow along on this uh necessarily i just want to show you the mechanics of this thing i'm lining up this corner lining up that edge sweeping down nice sharp creases now we've got what you would call valley folds because they look like valleys when viewed from above let's flip our valleys over so that they're mountains both of my diagonal folds are now mountains i'm going to fold right across the center of that x and carefully line up the ends of the creases and then i'm going to walk slowly up here find a center sweep that direction sweep that direction make a nice sharp crease there and then i'm going to open this up and i'm going to stand it up so that this fold that we just created is now a mountain fold and flip it around so the short side is on top the x is now on the top of the page again so we were here and i'm really flipping it over and just opening it up a little bit and making a little tunnel you can see i can i can go right under there now very few things happen fast in origami and this is one of the cool fast happening things with just three creases we're gonna make one of the all-time best bases for creating paper airplanes and we're gonna do it just like this i'm going to take one finger and press down right where all those creases meet very gently just until the paper pops you can see it pop change directions there and then i'm going to bring the top down and let the sides come in and that is a water bomb base let's tighten it just a little bit it fills the screen now look at what you've got here for making a paper airplane you've got these two corners here you can turn into tunnels in the front of the plane like i did with the with the twin jet so you've got a delta shape happening here which gives you less lift up front there's a ton of layers you've got four good solid layers up front and so along with having a delta shape and multiple layers moving toward the front of the plane you're uh you're off to a great running start for developing paper airplanes this is the super canard and to start folding this guy we'll need one sheet of eight and a half by eleven paper i prefer twenty pound paper the first time through a project like this a lot of serious folding so let's get going let's spin it we have the long side on top and we're going to fold it in half carefully line up the corners and as usual when we're folding in half line the corners up start in the middle sweep to the outside just like that nice sharp crease now we're going to fold one third of the paper over and the way you measure that you're just going to eyeball this the layered part here is going to be the same size as the unlayered part here so get it close line it up make sure your layers are staying together up here don't let the layers go dripping around keep those corners together as you bring it over and this part is going to be about the same size as that part and it doesn't have to be perfect just get it as close as you can eyeballing make a nice sharp crease i'm going to spin it around now so that the open part is toward me and we're going to do a series of what are called squash folds and the only mistake you can make with a squash fold is actually trying to do it too fast so let's see what's going on with the squash fold here first so we're going to open this up lift this up so it's pointed right straight up at us and we're gonna open the bottom two layers here put your finger all the way in there so it gets all the way to the top so this whole thing is starting to squeeze down and we're gonna move the top down taking care to line up the center crease with the center layer here so this center crease is going to line up with this center layer right here and i'm going to move the crease just to the left side of this center layer just to give me a little room to manipulate here and did i do that a lot just a little it's a little tiny bit of a cheat just to make sure i've got room to manipulate layers not really a cheat it's just the proper way to fold so that's a squash fold we've taken this flap and it was sticking up like that and we're squashing it reaching inside starting to move the layers to the outside and moving it down and squashing it flat like that now we're going to do the same thing to the back side here and so let's flip it over and we're going to lift this layer up and again we're going to open up the open layers here put your finger all the way in there so it starts to open up now at this point you can't see the layers underneath right you're kind of it's you're blocking so once you get it going the correct direction pro tip here flip it over now you can control these two layers on top move them down so that they line up with that center crease we're going to complete the squash from the opposite side you would normally complete a squash fold from but you're going to make a much more accurate crease i worked up to the top sweeping down to the bottom and now you can see you've got a water bomb like base and we're not done with squash folds each one of these flaps one two three four it's going to get squash folded so let's get going on that move that one to the move the right hand flap to the left i'm gonna press down and carefully line up this crease with the center crease here squash fold there okay so let's open this up a little bit more sometimes it's convenient to use a pen to reach up in there if you've got a pen handy that's a good thing to do i'm just going to reach up in there with my finger and open that up a little bit more press that down i want the squash to go neatly all the way to the top so again the only mistake you can really make with a squash fold is doing it too fast before everything is lined up get my crease just lined up with the center crease perfectly there i've got it squashed controlled the layers and now i'm just going to move this top flap back to the left and now we're going to squash this side so i'm lifting that up opening it up carefully positioning that crease so the squash so it ends right up here at the top point and then i'm gonna line up the crease that i'm flattening here right with the center line carefully lining it up with the center line and then sweeping to the outside of the squash to complete the squash so you are squashing it down but really you got to be a little more careful than just yeah you're going to nudge it in there coax it into coming up correctly there so i was squashed here i'm taking that top layer back to the left now i got this sort of upside down ice cream cone or upside down kite shape here and now we're going to squash these guys out here so it's easier to flip it back over to squash those layers let's flip it over i'm going to lift up one layer the right hand side and press down you can start to see the layer opening right here this is what we're going to squash right there pressing down and i'm lining up the crease with this edge right here this time this edge down here so this long crease is lining up with just that that edge right there so again carefully working my way up to the top point so it comes out and then lining up the crease and then pressing these flat so now we're going to move this top layer back to the right and we're gonna squash this one right here so let's lift it up you can see that's where we're we're gonna squash right in there those layers and gently coaxing that top of the squash up there so it meets the point carefully lining up the center crease on this flap with the main center crease of the plane and looking good now a double check always this this came out really nice and neat down here these corners lined up really super nice that's going to be the rear uh corners of the plane so we're off to a good start if that's a little bit off you can kind of fudge your squash folds to match but if you've taken care to line up these creases with the center line on each side it should be okay so again i've squashed it now i'm moving that top flap back and we've got oh boy you can start to see it's getting complicated look at all that that's just amazing so the next move we're going to do is a complex move called a petal fold and we're going to start our petal fold by taking these two little raw edges here just to the center so we're working with the top flap here right just go to the center oh i missed a little bit there can you see i missed just a little bit down there i'm going to straighten that right there and just pull it up until i can straighten it and i'm going to do this side just in that we're getting ready to do a pedal fold so we've got the two preliminary moves done for the pedal fold what we're going to do now is open up those two moves and to make a pedal fold we're going to need to do three more creases on the inside here so a new crease is going to go at the end right straight across at the end of these two creases we made in preparation and then you're gonna make two creases that go here so we're gonna actually make a little triangle inside there but it's actually easier than you think so what we're gonna do is lift this top layer just the top layer here of this big triangle we're lifting it up and we're going to use as the limit these little creases that we made here so the limit is going to be this corner right here in this corner right here that's going to be the limit so we're going to lift up this layer and we're going to start to form this crease that goes straight across between the ends of those two creases and we're just going to bend it right there for now we're not going to definitely make a crease so bend it right there where this these two creases meet this crease underneath and the crease on top so that's going to be a pivot point so we're going to follow the crease on the bottom on both sides so we've got the crease on both sides on the bottom going up and now we're going to bend this off keep moving it up until we bring together these two sides until they meet right here at this center crease we're using this center crease uh as a way the center crease right here you can see right there the center crease we're using that as a way to line up the sides that we're moving to the inside here so we're just kind of wrapping this around using the center crease as where the point of this is going to come out and now we want to start definitely making the creases in here from the center point down to the corners here you can kind of give it a little more attention by pressing right there and you can still see we haven't made our crease across here but now we're going to do that we're going to lift that up and make a crease right there now that is the completed petal fold and now that i've got it done it looks so easy but here's where we started we started here we were like this we folded this in we folded this in and now you can see where the new creases are going to go this is a valley fold these two are mountains and we start by lifting that up following these creases on the bottom those are going right where we wanted to go follow those on the bottom and that'll pull the layers to the inside and then you work that up into a point here and then the last move is to push that point and flatten it out and once you've got this fancy schmancy thing all done [Laughter] now the evil really starts okay we're going to pull this apart and we're going to grab onto these two legs and pull out kind of like you see my thumb's kind of going under as i'm pulling out and then that crease should if you can pull it up it'll pop like that then you just push it in there and using the same creases no new creases there just using the same creases it'll go up and inside crazy crazy crazy but that's not as crazy as it's gonna get we're about to get even crazier now we're going to start making these canards you can see how these guys are sweeping out so we're going to lift these points up and sweep them out and then we're going to narrow them eventually so the first trick is to make sure that you know where the point is underneath there is kind of the braille method that little point underneath that we made go up we're going to use as a limit for how much we're going to lift this up so this guy is going to start to get reversed we're going to change the direction of this crease right here we're going to pop that out and change the direction of that crease and we're going to lift it up but we're going to use that point inside as the limit for how high that goes so our little point is right here inside here you can kind of feel it this layer is going to get reversed that crease gets reversed and we're going to lift it just for that to where the point ends there you'll be able to feel it pretty definitely now the tricky thing is to to squash this whole flat this whole thing flat because it's just bulging up in the air doing nothing definite here so we're now we're going to have to start shaping it we've got this crease going right where it needs to go so from the back side from the under layers let's work our way from the bottom to the top so what's going to happen at the bottom layer is we're going to make a crease that goes from up in there out to this point here so let's do that so way up there where this point is buried underneath we're going to go make a crease that goes from that point down to this corner right here so this is the back side of that flap that we reverse the direction of the main crease on we're just going to make a crease that goes there and now we're going to follow this crease here pressing that down and you'll see that there's some slack happening right here and so to make the top layer crease we're just going to press this down try to line up the crease with the the bottom layer because this is a really hard move by the way very complex so take your time you'll need to watch this a couple of times to probably get it that's okay so now it looks like that now we do the same thing to the other side again the first move is reversing the direction of this crease right here so we're going to pop it up and we're going to let it reverse all the way up to where the other one ends just make sure it's in a matching point there start moving it over so that we can make the bottom layer crease here again it's going up inside there all the way down to this corner here that's the first part of this assembly and now we're going to start pressing it flat by using this long crease that we reversed press it down you have to press inside there you can see this little triangle form right there right there these little triangles should be about the same size on each side you zoom in you'll see those little triangles a little more definitely those little guys form as a result of the too much slack here so we've created this what's going to be the forward canard of the plane right there so this started down like this we lift this up reversing that fold and then we make this crease and then press this and press the top triangle back down which forms this little triangle right there and of course you do that on both sides we're not done as you can see the canard is a little bit thinner than the flap we've got there so now we've got to start narrowing that flap so step one on doing that is to take this edge right here this raw edge here you're going to lift this whole flap up and over and line it up with the right hand side there this long crease that we just made put that one there we're going to do the same thing on this side this raw edge goes against this new crease that we just made right there okay so this is another difficult fold if you can make it past this you're going all the way i know these were hard this is even weirder this is a little weirder so hang in there this is where all the magic starts to happen right here okay we're going to unfold this lifting the top layer and using the end of that crease that we just made as a reference well you can hold that down with your thumbnail you're going to lift the top layer top layer only and we're going to make a crease that goes from right here where this little reference crease ended all the way out to this corner right here so top layer only making the crease going out to that corner you can run your finger down inside right to the corner of that pocket there's one layer done now we're going to lift the layer that we left behind swing this back down lift both of those layers together and you can see this guy starting to pop you're pulling that upward so this layer here is going to get pulled upward we're going to make a new crease that goes up this way on this layer right here so those two guys lift those together you can see this is pulling up pulling up pulling up so start to form a crease that goes from right here all the way down to this corner right here so let's just push that over and make that crease make sure this is staying in the right position making that crease and then you'll make a new crease up here as that comes together now i missed a little bit you can see that i missed just a little bit right here i'm just a little below that mark that's okay don't worry about that just try to get it in the same spot for this side it's not critical but if you miss a little bit it's way more important to get this whole assembly kind of looking like this and this corner ends up being kind of important for the looks of the plane later so now that you've got that going we're just going to lift this up and tuck that underneath and there we go you can kind of see that now that canard is really starting to form there so let's do the same thing to this side we're going to unfold that we're going to use our thumbnail as a limit there and i'm going to cheat it down just so it ends up in the same place as my other fold there we go now those corners are matching you'll never see the error okay i'm folding out to the outside edge there the outside corner that is making that crease trying to get it to line up with the mistake that i made before okay there's the under layer done now i'm going to swing that back down and lift both of those at the same time which is going to cause this layer to start pulling up so lay that flat continue to pull that layer up and make the new crease from this corner right here all the way down to this corner right here rolling that over getting that corner in place flattening it and flattening this part right up here so i didn't it wasn't perfect it's a little bit off but you know what i'm not gonna i'm not gonna sweat that that's a that's it looks like a giant error right here right now um but you know what it's not going to affect the plane flight that's one where we're just going to go that's between you and i we're not going to tell anybody about that one we got a little bit of a mistake right there we're going to straighten it up on the next move that we're going to do here this is where this is how we're going to hide that one so now we're going to start to move these flaps back to the outside and i'm going to fold this over i'm going to lift this top flap i'm gonna fold this over just right at that corner so it's gonna go from this corner all the way down to this corner and moving this flap back to the outside there we go i'm gonna do the same thing on this side the corner from this only i'm not gonna go to that corner i'm gonna go right here where this guy ends right here okay so moving that back out i'm gonna go just short this is where i'm gonna level this guy up right here just short and right there where that one matches and then i'm going to go down to this corner and that my friend is how you hide a tiny folding error those corners came out in the right place and since oh i could let that layer slip just a little bit as i was playing games there so i'm gonna remake that holding that in place okay there we go that's better now that's laying flat we're going to do a little reverse fold move here because it'll lock together and hold together a little bit more nicely if i instead of just leaving that loose like that i'm going to tuck this under a little bit so i've got two layers kind of compressing it together so a reverse fold works like this we're going to unfold that we're going to follow the bottom layer and reverse this top layer here so this edge is going to end up going the different direction that's why it's called reversible we're actually going to reverse this big crease here we're going to recrease this a little bit right here but that's not the reversing part this is the reversing part i'm flattening that following the bottom layer pushing that big crease to the all the way up inside there and i've reversed it so it was down here like this and kind of like closing a milk carton i'm pushing that in following this bottom layer is going to go the same direction it's going and this top layer you can see it was like that and then it's going to turn into a mountain fold as i push this layer in and reverse that that crease there this turns into a mountain bowl okay that's one side done no new creases here we're just manipulating the old creases so i'm going to make this reverse fold here i'm just going to reverse this little part i'm lifting this up pressing this crease that's going to reverse i'm pressing it flat pressing it to the inside and it goes swings out like that so now all we have to do is a little bit of shaping what we're going to start with is folding the plane in half right down the center line let's flip it over so the relatively smooth side is up we're going to rotate it so the nose is pointed left and then right down the old pipeline here just following the existing crease now when you're making the wing crease the cool thing here about this plane is that you can see this old style dart the classic dart is kind of in the heart of this thing and it's populated by all this other high-tech stuff but to get the old-school dart look we're going to use this edge and bring it right down to the center crease that we just made really easy to do with the nose you have tons of room to line up right here at the nose and so you'll get that going that direction and then bring it down and you have to play a little bit of peekaboo here with that center crease you can see it pretty easily right there i'm going to move in a little bit you can see it even better here you can see it right here you're going to line up right there and then just do the best you can as it goes back toward the rear of the plane so get it go in the right direction kind of start pressing it and then go ahead and start creasing it sweeping left sweeping right and that's looking pretty good let's flip it over we'll make the other wing match of course so now the important thing is you've got these two rear corners on every paper airplane that's what you want to pay attention to those two rear corners this and this and of course we're going to use our lineup right here again let's get the nose going just going to bend it over we're not going really going to make a fine crease here yet we're just going to bend it into position and then continue to bend this over now you're going to carefully line up these rear corners and start making a bend in there before you make a real crease get it lined up start to press a little bit harder and then we're going to sweep toward the back of the plane make sure those corners are staying lined up as you sweep toward the back of the plane i got a little bit of air going there there we go back on track sweep to the back of the plane and then start sweeping to the front of the plane get that lock down in position now your canards could be a little bit off here you can see it's not perfect but that's okay what you're going to do to level this thing up to even this up is you're going to make a crease for these winglets now look at the way the crease goes right down the winglet so that it stays in a straight line right here that's what you're looking for and you're looking for it to be parallel with the main wing crease and in a straight line right there so if you look at it right down the barrel here you can see those that's one straight line right down the winglets that's what you're shooting for so let's start with the rear winglet and we're going to use this corner right here as kind of a reference and you can see the angle that we're aiming for right here move that up a little bit that looks pretty good okay i'm gonna go ahead and make that that looks pretty tight pretty correct now we're gonna make this we're just gonna continue on just like we're making one solid crease up there we're just going to continue this line right through here and we'll do the best we can to line this up and make it even i think that's giving me a little bit of trouble right there so i'm going to back up and take one more run out of here that looks pretty good okay so that came up pretty straight it's a straight line between those creases right there that's looking good and no matter how straight it came out when we do the other side we're going to make these layers match and so the key thing here when we flip it over to the other side you start you know paying attention more to that bottom layer you do want it to be parallel here but really what you're doing is you want to make this wing match the other wing so roll it carefully roll it over until you can just line up with the edge below so what you're doing is just just carefully rolling over and double checking underneath there that you're lining it up right on top of that other edge and then as a last check just take a look at this this edge here so that all looks pretty good lining up that edge that comes out pretty parallel and what we're gonna do here is now do the same thing with the front winglet just get that going looks like we're pretty close in line with this okay looking good winglets are done they're folded anyway now it's all about the adjusting and there's some really delicious adjusting with regard to this plane so the first thing we're going to do unlike most great paper airplanes not a lot of dihedral angle here we're going to set the wings fairly flat because these winglets are going to add what's called effective dihedral they're going to cause the wingtip vortices to shed really cleanly and they're going to really help the plane resist rolling left or rolling right and as long as these are straight up and down what you've got here is effective dihedral from these upward swept wing tips both ways it also gives it really good structural integrity all the way down the length of the plane and then what this plane is known for is being stall resistant and to add the stall resistance what we're going to do is increase the angle of incidence that is the amount of tilt on this forward wing now stalls are caused by two things if the plane is flying too slowly the airflow just can't follow the shape of the wing so the coanda effect doesn't have a chance to have its way to follow the surface of the wing so if too slow a flight is happening the airflow comes unglued that's called a stall and if the plane is tilted up too much with regard to the airflow if it's just trying to to angle up and fly like that too much of the airflow is going like this the airflow can't easily follow the shape of the wing and so the airflow comes unglued and no more downward uh vectoring off the trailing edge of the plane and therefore no more lift it's a loss of lift so stall is really just a loss of lift a loss of laminar flow over the wing and it's not making any more lift and we call that a stall so what we're doing here is intentionally making the little wings stall by adding more angle of incidence here tilting that upward more so when the plane the whole plane is close to stall phase because this little wing is tilted up a little bit more it's going to stall first that'll drop the nose down which now causes the plane to pick up speed and reduces the angle of incidence on the main wing here so that it never gets the stall phase so it's a really tricky little design you've got a little bit of upward sweep here on the canard and then what we're going to do of course because it is a glider in an engine-less plane we're going to add some up elevator right back here right there that is a really great looking plane pull back out just a little bit give yourself a little bit of room there to swing this guy around show you every angle of this guy look at that what a gorgeous looking plane you can see that old style dart front to back there really cool forward canard making it stall resistant and then that that nice broad rear wing there gorgeous plane will fly pretty good distance but here's the issue with this guy look at all of these layers under here that's really going to cause a lot of drag underneath the plane all the air flow does is get tripped up on all those little layers everywhere and so it's slowing it down that's a drag inducing thing all those layers even all these layers right here at the nose see all that thickness happening right there it's just not quite as clean as it needs to be to get a world record going but what a fantastic looking plane the super canard you

Channel: WIRED

Views: 197,647

Rating: 4.8150506 out of 5

Keywords: airplane that flies far, canard paper airplane, canard wired, cool paper airplane, how to fold a paper airplane, paper airplane, paper airplane canard, paper airplane flies far, paper airplane folding, paper airplane guy, paper airplane guy canard, paper airplane guy wired, paper airplane how to, paper airplane how to video, paper airplane tutorial, paper airplane wired, teach paper airplane, the paper airplane guy, wired, wired canard, wired paper airplane guy

Id: 38ZpBSjxyDo

Length: 32min 31sec (1951 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 29 2020