How to make a paper plane

Building planes is serious business. Especially paper planes. I'm writing this post as a tribute to all of the friendly competitions I had with my siblings for the last couple of years building paper planes. Of course they're too young to understand the concept of aerodynamics. But if a kid tells you that it's a plane, it's a plane. Like when a kid hands you a ringing toy phone. No matter how tough-looking you are, you still answer it.

First of all, when you build a paper plane or "paper dart", you have to make sure that it is aerodynamically designed. This means that all the edges should be thin so there would be as less drag as possible. Paper planes tends to be less air resistant if it's thinner in width. A plane with thick width will produce more drag than a plane that is thinner. As a thinner plane will be able to "slice" the air more efficiently, we will use a thinner design for our paper plane.

Some planes have a thicker front end for their wings to stabilize the aircraft but this doesn't apply to planes that is smaller in size i.e. the paper plane.

Basic wing shape or the "airfoil" of the plane.

Thick airfoil

Thin airfoil

Note that we're not making a Cessna 172-esque  wing but a fighter jet one.

When you build your paper plane, always make sure that the edges are as smooth as possible. The smoothness also affects the drag so be sure you take it into account.

Now, the part where we make the plane. There are lots of  ways to make a paper plane. The design can range from simple to extremely complicated. Today, the first one we will make is the classic "Belly Button Glider". This type of paper plane is moderately easy to make and the only material you will need for this is only the paper itself.

Instructions:
Belly Button Glider

What you need:
-Paper

To build this plane,
-fold the acquired paper lengthwise:

1. Fold the top corners inward to the center line.

2. Fold the tip down as shown.

3. Fold the left corner to the center line.

4. Fold the top flap to meet the left edge.

5. Fold the top flap layer in half.

6. Unfold the two top layers together as shown.

7. Repeat steps 3 to 6 for the right side. Then fold up the center triangle tip. This tip is known as the belly button.

8. Fold the paper in half lengthwise as done at the start.

9. And finally, make the wing folds.

The completed plane should look like the picture. You can bend the traced back edges to make the nose point upwards while in flight which would slightly give the paper plane longer air time. Of course you can use any light material to make your plane but the most commonly used and highly recommended one is paper. There are a lot of paper plane designs out there that can outbeat this one any day but this classic design is what I kept on making for every "flying competitions" that my siblings have. I always make a plane with this design because it always win. Whether we're judging between the best distance flier or the one with the most flair. This one will always be the best to get the job done.

Lastly, this post is probably too long just to make a simple paper plane. This is the only plane design I'm going to post so I hope you found good use for it. Always remember that when making paper planes, you need to take aerodynamics into account. Make sure the folds are nice and neat and there are no rough edges. Oh, and you can always experiment with paper plane designs and materials so just give it a go. There countless possibilities you can make a plane design. Who knows? you might just discover something completely extraordinary.