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Comment by simonsarris | Hacker News Reader

In the 90's I went to a small middle school, the 8th grade class was 21 people. Once, the school had a contest in the indoor gym, we each designed paper planes and the one who flew it the farthest won a prize. We argued with teachers over an allowance for a little bit of tape, which some of us used just as nose weight. However, each kid was the one to "fly" his own plane, a big oversight.

Almost the last kid, when it was Sam's turn to "fly", he stepped up to the line, crumpled up his design very tightly into little ball, and hurled the paper mass as far as he could.

Strangely, I can't remember what happened or who won! But his genius observation of the rules stuck with me.

The plane I designed is not among these designs, but a totally square design that I had learned earlier from an origami book. This is the closest one: https://www.foldnfly.com/17.html#The-Square-Plane

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Similar story from a university aero course that ended with a paper airplane competition.

There were some remarkable paper airplanes, making amazing flights, all sorts of research and time went into developing the ideal model.

One guy comes up representing his team and he gets out a piece of rolling paper and a lighter. Tears the tiniest portion off the rolling paper, sets it alight, and then follows it with his finger through the air as it took forever to land on the ground.

I believe the incident led to a rule change for later years.

> follows it with his finger through the air as it took forever to land on the ground.

Sounds interesting, but I'm confused. So is he walking in front of it, and the flame is pulled toward his finger? Did it travel the farthest that way?

No, apologies. He burnt the paper and then picked one of the ashes as his "plane"

His finger never touched the plane after it took "flight" just pointed to it from the side so that everyone could follow the "flight path."

Some classmates were upset, I was just impressed.

Ah, I'm guessing time aloft was the metric?

"Time of flight" only the definition of flight was something like unpowered and untethered off the ground. So floating slowly to the ground becomes "flight" by the definition of the rules.

Wouldn't the burning of the paper technically make it powered?

No, the burning of the paper removed a great of mass from the paper turning to to a brittle paper ash. After the fire was out is when the timer started, since the paper ash was so much lighter but the same volume its buoyancy in air was drastically increased causing it to "float."

The up draft from the flame wasn't utilized to power the flight, the fire was only used transform the original rolling paper into a "plane" by mass reduction through combustion.

You can use a light paper and a board that you walk with to provide lift; I'd have thought that would create a "thrower stays behind line" rule.

There was a team that did this, as long as they didn't create an up draft it was legal by the rules, their air time was still less than a minute.

The burnt ash wafted for well over 60 seconds.

I did the same in elementary school, I made my own plane design after many iterations of a/b testing. It won pretty much every airplane contest. No tape, pennies, or paperclips needed, they actually reduced the overall distance if the center of mass was too close to the tip.

When thrown you had to keep the wings folded down unlike a traditional plane. Basically I made a dart. You didn't have to be good at throwing either, guaranteed to work in any weather condition since it didn't rely much on aerodynamics.

Unlike regular origami planes, the harder you threw it the further it went. So I always had the biggest guy in class throw it.

Suprisingly I never came across the design in any origimai books/sites I've found either, even years later. Its probably out there somewhere but I still remember how to make it.

I'm interested! Maybe you could document it (drawing, video, whatever)?

I’d also love to see the design!!

Here I took pictures of the build

https://imgur.com/a/KvsowhC

I tested it out a few times. It actually sucks. I can't help but see all the flaws this plane has many years later. It only flies up to ~50 to 100feet max indoors which is kinda of awful (world record indoors is 226feet). Once it hits peak pivotal height it just nosedives straight to the ground. Most top tier plane designs have a gliding mechanism on the apex point, mine doesn't.

It doesn't really work exactly at a 45* arc either. Its closer to something less optimal at maybe ~35 to 40* for longer distance to prevent nosediving.

I always thought this plane was really good. I remember when I had my first airplane competition at elementary school, everyone had shitty airplane designs. This plane went from one end to the classroom to another (25 feet), slamming hard into the wall. Classmates were shocked it performed so well, and it was definitely a headturner as it didn't look like a plane.

I think I may have overestimated how good this plane is. Its not really, its mechanically a poor design. It must have just been my imagination b/c I didn't know any better at the time (dunning kruger effect). And had validation in small size competitions. Plus I was shorter back then and things seemed bigger

My Dad showed me me how to make that design! That was always my favorite way to make a plane. I think it's because the design holds up well to a kid throwing it as hard as possible. It doesn't glide so much as arcs like an arrow with enough force. It also works OK if you tape a slightly hooked paperclip to the tip, and then use a large rubber band to launch it.

That's awesome :). I didnt think my design was unique, it just seemed like the natural way of making a paper airplane

I never tried out the rubberband trick but I definitely will next time. Seems like an easy way to make a quick projectile

Whenever I visit my nieces/ nephews, this is one of my cheap parlor tricks / fun toys I make.

> It doesn't really work exactly at a 45 arc either. Its closer to something less optimal at maybe ~35 to 40* for longer distance to prevent nosediving.*

45 degrees is a theoretical optimum for ballistic flight in a vacuum. From what I recall from school, air drag makes the actual optimum on Earth closer to 35 degrees.

I did this too! My exploitation of the loophole was aided by the fact that we were also allowed to use (an unspecified number of) paperclips to "balance" our designs. The result was a very dense square with the aerodynamics of a skipping stone. I also brought a traditional paper airplane which I was allowed to fly when my other design was predictably disqualified for general bad faith.

I was under the impression that these competitions get judged mostly by flight time, not distance - at least that's what one I participated in did.

Ironically, my sister won that one with my design and won a 30-min flight in a "real" glider. That was probably ten years ago and I'm still sour.

I heard a take on this story in a book about origami (origami airplanes, I guess? It's been long enough I don't specifically remember the source). The artist said, roughly, that if you crumple up a sheet of paper, dip it in water, squish it hard, let it dry, and then throw it as far as you can, it will go quite far. A paper airplane must go farther otherwise it might as well not be a paper airplane.

I did the same thing in eighth grade. Put my toes on the throw line with an unfolded sheet of paper, and crumpled it right there on the spot. We were judged on both distance and "straightness" of flight, I believe that I won on both counts. However, I was disqualified for "not being an airplane" though nobody, not even the teachers, could tell me why. I was hoping to justify my stance that golf balls produce lift, so therefore my ball should produce lift and be considered an airplane as well, but there was no interested ear to appeal to.

we have similar contest, but in the University, and it was for the longest (time) flight, not the farthest. Among all guys that tries different setups the contest won... a girl (to make it even more awesome, I think she was the only female contest member :D) :)

I used to roll a sheet of paper up into a very tight tube, then flatten one half and tie an overhand knot in it. That's how I won the "distance shot" portion of informal classroom wastebasketball competitions. You just hold the light end and flip it towards the trash can.

So even the wadded-up ball can be improved upon.

And no, I don't know why the teachers ever left us alone in the classroom.

We did the same in elementary school. The winning plane was essentially a dart hurled at a 45 degree angle. It didn't fly per se, but did get launched pretty far.

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