DailyDirt: Flying Paper Airplanes

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Folding paper has been taken to an extreme in recent years, and a few entertaining examples involve making paper airplanes. Almost anyone can make a paper airplane (even some robots can do it), but to really make your mark, you have to do something pretty extraordinary with construction paper. Here are just a few world records for paper airplanes.

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

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Comments on “DailyDirt: Flying Paper Airplanes”

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10 Comments
Anonymous Coward says:

Quote:

An important distinction should be made between returning boomerangs and non-returning boomerangs. Returning boomerangs actually do fly and are examples of the earliest heavier than air man made flight. A returning boomerang has two or more airfoil wings arranged so that the spinning creates unbalanced aerodynamic forces that curve its path so that it travels in an elliptical path and returns to its point of origin when thrown correctly. While a throwing stick can also be shaped overall like a returning boomerang, it is designed to travel as straight as possible so that it can be aimed and thrown with great force to bring down game. Its surfaces therefore are symmetrical and not uneven like the airfoils which give the returning boomerang its characteristic curved flight.

Wikipedia: Boomerang

Anonymous Coward says:

Paper such a wonderfull material.

People don’t give it much thought but, if you glue a lot of them together it becomes wood, and the various way to bind it together goes from high tech resins to simple flour and water.

Speaking of witch reminds me of the sticky rice mortar used to construct the Great Wall of China that is still standing today. I wonder if I can use that stuff to make crack repairs, just have to find the lime ratio to apply to it so it doesn’t get mold.

Pixelation says:

Years ago I spent about an hour tossing paper airplanes from a friends 45th story apartment in Chicago. They went WAAAAY further than 200 feet. We had a lot of fun with it. I remember driving over one seven blocks away the next morning. Some of them would shoot straight up from the updrafts before sailing away.

I suppose I better call Guinness…

Stephen says:

airplanes at shea

I’m with Pixelation. Back in the 80s I went to calendar night at Shea, which meant by the fifth inning everyone in the upper deck beyond first base was making months into airplanes and trying to set distance records. The thing is, Shea had those swirling winds, so every time an airplane reached the field, the wind knocked it down hard. Then, late in the game, one got through the wind and soared over first. The crowd erupted, which totally confused the players until they saw the plane soaring across the in field. I think they must have called time, because Ray Knight was certainly watching it cruise over third and into the lower level boxes. Another eruption of applause. That plane went at least 250′.

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