38 brainspacemagazine.com @BrainspaceMag /BrainspaceMagazineengineering
Young or old, everyone loves to fly paper airplanes. Folding paper
to form a glider and competing against other flyers is a tradition
that has been around for decades. Paper planes teach us a lot about
how real planes stay in the air.Aerodynamics
and the art of paper airplanes
Who made the first paper plane?
Some say the Chinese, who invented origami, are the creators of the first
paper airplane 2,000 years ago. Others believe that Leonardo da Vinci’s
experimentations with flying machines may have inspired the very first
paper plane. However, Jack Northrope, an aviation specialist, is credited
for the design of the paper airplane in 1930.What makes a paper airplane fly?
You do! With the help of aerodynamic forces: thrust, lift, gravity and drag.Aerodynamics
Aerodynamics is the study of the forces that make objects move in the
air.
Studying the motion of air around an object allows us to measure the
forces of lift, which allows an aircraft to overcome gravity, and drag.
Everything moving through the air, including airplanes, rockets, and
hummingbirds, is affected by aerodynamics.