Expert: Mark Janus - 12/8/2011

Question
Mr.Janus,
My name is Aaron jones i am an eighth grader at bonham junior high school and my partner is abigail martinson and our topic is
aviation. Our question is what paper airplane desgn will fly the farest? If you can help please email me and I want to thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to read this.


Sincerely ,Aaron jones

Answer
Even though paper airplanes appear exceedingly simple, what makes them fly (or fly well) is not so simple.  Since you said you are in the 8th grade, I looked at some books on amazon....  you might consider getting "The World Record Paper Airplane Book" by Ken Blackburn and Jeff Lammers

Teaching at a University I know of many very technical books, but I think the book I suggested might be a good start.

The basic formulas that you would use center around flight stability and control and from aerodynamics the Bernoulli equation which relates flow velocity to pressure... you can also look these up on the internet...  look under gliding flight

Hope this helps a bit, good luck with pursuing your interests,
mj