Folding And Flying Your Planes

Almost anyone can make paper airplanes, but it helps to know a little about how best to fold them and how to make them fly the way you want.

The following guidelines will help you have great flights from the get-go.

Tip: If you are a first-time paper airplane pilot, start with either the Slice or the pirate is Secret.

They are excellent fliers, easy to fold, and simple to adjust.

MAKING THE PLANES The planes in this book are marked with three kinds of lines: solid white lines, dashed line, and dotted lines.

The solid white lines show you where to cut the plane.

They are also marked with little pictures of scissors.

The dashed lines are what we call “fold-in” lines.

This means that these lines will be on the inside of a crease; you will not be able to see them once you make the fold.

They are your main folding guides and are numbered in the order you should make the folds.

The dotted lines are “fold-away” lines.

You’ll be able to see them on the outside of the crease when you make your folds.

These lines are guides to help you know that you are folding in the right place.

Try to make your creases as sharp as possible.

It is smart to run a fingernail over the edge after you make a fold.

This will help especially with the planes that have a lot of folds in one area, like the World Record Paper Airplane and the pirate’s Secret.

Don’t worry if sometimes your folds are a little off from the dashed and dotted lines.

Try your best to fold along the lines, but if they don’t math exactly, it is OK.

The plane will probably come out fine.

Do make sure, however, that your plane’s wings are even.

If they are different shapes or sizes, it’ll be hard to get the plane to fly well.


ADJUSTING THE PLANES Even if you folded your plane perfectly, there’s a good chance that it won’t fly well.

Why not? Because almost all paper airplanes need a little fine-tuning to fly properly.

FAST AND SLOW Adjusting the elevators is probably the most important thing you can do to prevent your plane from diving (when it suddenly swoops to the ground and crashes) or stalling (when it climbs, slows, the dives).

Elevator adjustments also let you make the plane fly fast or slowly.

The elevators on a paper airplane are usually located at the back edges of the wings.

Elevators on real planes are normally on the back edge of the tail and work the same way as elevators on paper airplanes.


If you find that your planes is diving and crashing, add up elevator by bending the back edges of the wings up a little.

If you find your plane is stalling, you may have added too much up elevator.

Flatten the back edges of the wings.

The more you bend the elevator up, the slower the plane will fly.

With proper adjustments you can make it float through the air.

Reduce the amount of up elevator for fast flights.

Every airplane is different, so it will probably take a few adjustments and throws to fine-tune your plane to fly at the speed you want.



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