Airplanes

There are many ways to build airplanes and many ways to make them fly.  My partner and I were given the assignment to build an airplane, build a launch pad and make it fly 10 feet.  We couldn't use kits and we couldn't use our "man power" to help with the launching.  This was a challenge for two girls to put together, the most of an airplane I had made was a paper airplane.

There were different styles, different materials, different wing sizes and shapes.  These all affected the outcome.  We began with making the plane and trying out different designs.  The first was pretty effective.  We could get it to fly, but the gluide wasn't quite what we wanted, there were a few other changes to the plane, wing size and wing material and then it was decided that we would try a new design.  We came up with the classic look, the Wright Brothers look.

Double wings for air to go through, adding to the gluide.  A tip in the back with some weight to even out with the front end.  This is the classical look and when we would give it a lift it would gluide in the air pretty well.

The next challenge was designing a launchpad that would give the plane the lift and push it needed.  We tried the mouse trap idea, but there wasn't enough power and the launchpad was too big for the trap to even give it a push.  It was then decided that we would use a flat board and use rubber bands.  There were many tries as to where to put nails on the board to hook the band to and whether or not there were two nail needed.  Using two nails and hooking the band to the plane and the two nails worked in letting it gluide, but it wasn't going the 10 feet needed, after trying many different angles it was decided to use one nail.  It was then to try different angles with just one and the final position was in the middle of the launchpad.


Below there is a diagram I put together of the launchpad and the take off of the plane.  When we showed up to school we tested our plane.  The first time it went over the 10 foot mark by a few inches, but the second time it full just before the mark.  After testing our plane our teacher asked why we left the launch pad straight and not at an angle.  The answer was the plane would decided to nose dive if we put the board at an angle.  There were problems, there were ideas that worked.  Overall I have learned how much work is put into designing these planes that we ride.  The physics that is in it with dealing with the air flow and the effect of the wings in the air.  The shape dealing with the gluide of the plane.  There are so many different things in the world of physics that must be used to design and build planes.  This project was hard, but it taught me more about the importance of physics and how to understand it.  Also how to build different types of planes and their form that must be considered.