Model Airplane Tissue Paper
designs to make an airplane?
I need a disign to make an airplane. I’m trying to design one with two large wings i nthe front, and 2 smaller ones in the back. Possibly adding a tail to it. It’s needs to be made out of balsa wood, wings of tissue paper, and it has a propeller on the front powered by a rubber band. I am trying to make one for my science fair project, but I need an effective model to do my testing, so I need to minimize human error. I’ve tried a couple designs, but does anyone else have any ideas?
Is it a science project or do you want a flying model plane?
If you just want a flying model as an example, why not buy a kit?
I used google to search for “model aircraft plans balsa wood” and got thousands of hits, many of them could be useful to you. For example: http://www.jitterbuzz.com/navion.html and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_aircraft
One key factor to understand if you’re going to design a plane yourself is “balance”. You want your plane to fly forward, not looping up or down. The center of gravity will need to be roughly at one third of the leading edge of your main wing, the far end wing will have to be adjusted so that the plane’s balance is perfect.
The propellor and rubber band will have a high mass (relative to the rest of the plane) and you could adjust the length of the tail to compensate for this. The longer the tail, the less force you need to keep things balanced. See this: http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/WindTunnel/Activities/balance_of_forces.html
