Why Your Paper Airplane Sucks — Tips for Throwing and Adjusting Paper Airplanes

[Music] [Applause] you so you just folded a sick paper airplane and it looks amazing when you throw it it is nothing short of an epic fail so what's the deal in this video I will be teaching you how to throw and adjust your paper airplanes so they fly as well as possible I'll teach you the basics about control surfaces on real airplanes and then we can use that information to adjust and improve the flight of our paper airplanes but there's something we should talk about first if your plane isn't flying well the very first thing you should consider is symmetry ask yourself does the left half of my plane look like the right half if the answer is a definite no then that's almost certainly your problem for a plane to perform at its best it needs to be symmetrical asymmetry can cause a plane to turn spiral dive and crash in many different ways you may need to refold your plane being careful to make exact creases and maintain symmetry but don't give up yet even if your plane is asymmetrical there's still hope the rest of this video should help you compensate for the differences between the two halves of the plane another likely culprit for poor flight is bad throwing technique even the best planes can fly poorly with a bad throw so getting this right is crucial to its performance however there isn't just one proper throwing technique for all paper airplanes to throw a plane properly you need to first correctly identify what type of paper airplane it is paper airplanes generally fall into two categories gliders and darts gliders tend to have wide wings and fly at slow speeds if you launch them gently they'll glide across your room but if you throw them too hard they'll crash because they're weaker wings can't withstand high speeds without performing darts on the other hand are meant for those blistering speeds but improper technique can still cause them to crash as well if you tilt the plane to the left or to the right as you launch it it will likely turn in that direction try to launch it so that the vertical axis of the plane is perpendicular to the ground if you are throwing your plane properly but it still doesn't fly well then it's time to make some small adjustments to improve its performance the first adjustment to consider is to give your plane's wings positive dihedral angle what is that you ask well it's actually quite simple all you have to do is angle the wings slightly upward if the wings angle up the plane is said to have positive dihedral angle if they angle down the plane is said to have negative dihedral angle or the wings are considered an heed rule by applying dihedral angle to a plane's wings you increase the stability of the plane now if the plane tips to the right or to the left it will naturally want to correct itself this works to stabilize the plane for a couple of reasons but I'll have to discuss those further in another video at this point we've covered the very fundamentals of throwing and adjusting your plane in the next few minutes we'll be looking at how to fix specific issues in the performance of your plane but to understand why your paper airplane flies the way it does it helps to first talk about control surfaces on real aircraft and you can stick around for that if you want a true education but if you want a quick fix you can skip ahead in the video I've put a time stamp here for you for those of you sticking around a control surface is the moving portion of any flying surface pilot utilizes control surfaces to steer the plane in the direction he or she wants to travel there are several different types of control surfaces and each serves a different purpose but they functions similarly here's a list of the control surfaces found on planes if rudders elevators ailerons elevates the stake a quick look at what each one does rudders control the yaw of a plane and are used to help with turn left or right a rotor is located on a vertical stabilizer of a plane essentially a vertical stabilizer is a surface that is either perpendicular to the wings or nearly perpendicular to the wings it helps prevent the plane from rolling unintentionally and gives it directional stability on real planes the vertical stabilizer is usually a tail but on many paper airplanes the only vertical stabilizer is the body of the folded plane on a real plane the pilot operates controls that cause the rudder to start deflecting air in this example the rudder has been set to stick out of the left side of the tail as air passes by the plane it hits the rudder and gets deflected to the left that pushes the tail to the right but as the tail is pushed to the right the plane rotates around its center of lift if the tail goes right the nose goes left so to turn the plane left air must be deflected off the left side of the rudder to turn the plane right there must be deflected off the right side of the rudder elevators control the pitch of the plane they determine whether a plane goes up or down and are located on the tail they operate using the same principles as the rudder in this example here the elevator is set to stick out above the tail this two flex air upward enforces the tail downward again because the plane rotates around its center of lift the nose is forced upward and the plane climbs ailerons controlled the role of a plane on real aircraft there on the outside of the main wing by adjusting one up and one down air is forced in opposite directions causing the plane to roll and Ella Vons are just a control surface that functions both as an elevator and an aileron most paper airplanes utilize these rather than having distinct elevators and distinct ailerons and finally we have flaps which extend to give a wing of an aircraft in greater area and greater lift this allows a plane to fly at slower speeds and aids in takeoff and landing paper airplanes don't have flaps though so I won't say much more about them we can use this knowledge of control surfaces on real planes to adjust the flight of our paper airplanes let's take a look at some common problems and use these principles to fix them if your plane turns and you want it to fly straight the solution is to make a rudder adjustment again rudders are located on vertical stabilizers so the first thing you'll need to do is identify the vertical stabilizer of your plane on paper airplanes a vertical stabilizer can take a lot of shapes but the main vertical stabilizer is usually the part of the plane that you hold to throw it I'll show you some other examples now so you get the idea once you've located a vertical stabilizer you're ready to make the necessary adjustment if your plane is turning to the left you essentially want to make it turn more to the right so you'll make a rudder adjustment to the right bend the vertical stabilizer slightly to the right small adjustments go a long way here so give it a throw to test it and then make additional adjustments if necessary if the plane turns to the right and just make a rudder adjustment to the left now if your plane dives or doesn't glide as well as you like and this is a really common problem actually then all you have to do is make an elevator adjustment elevators are located at the rear of the plane on a horizontal wing just bend the wing upward slightly on both sides of its Center again small adjustments go a long way if you've been the wing too much your plane will climb in stall and then crash so don't do that if your plane is rolling and you want it to fly level then you'll have to make an aileron adjustment if your plane is rolling clockwise bend the outer edge at the left wing slightly upward or the outer edge of the right wing slightly downward if it's rolling counterclockwise reverse those instructions also know that your plane may need to be adjusted in more than one way before it's flying as well as possible and you can use these same principles to intentionally make your plane turn flip and spiral if it's flying straight all you have to do is into the elevators upward to make it do backflips and if you want it to turn just make a rudder adjustment to make it spiral adjust the ailerons so experiment and have fun and with that you have the basics for throwing and adjusting your paper airplane you should be able to fix any problems you encounter or make your plane fly as crazy as possible I hope you guys found this video helpful let me know in the comments if you have any other questions or even if you have suggestions on how to trim your plane properly good luck flying be sure to subscribe for more awesome paper airplane content by clicking on my channel icon in the top right corner or check out another one of my videos here and if you really like what I do head over to foldable flight calm or patreon.com slash foldable fly and as always thank you for watching

Channel: Foldable Flight

Views: 551,276

Keywords: Throwing Paper Airplanes, Adjusting Paper Airplanes, Throwing and Adjusting Paper Airplanes, Trimming Paper Airplanes, Paper Airplane Tips, Foldable Flight, Why Your Paper Airplane Sucks — Tips for Throwing and Adjusting Paper Airplanes, Why is my paper airplane bad, Why does my paper airplane suck, why is my paper airplane awful, how to trim a paper airplane, trimming paper airplanes, throwing tips for paper airplanes, How to throw a paper airplane, paper plane how to

Id: YOaYSCm4YcY

Length: 8min 49sec (529 seconds)

Published: Fri May 11 2018