With the widespread availability of CAD (Computer Aided Design) software, the rise of the Internet, and inexpensive printers allowing for accurate reproduction of the design parts, paper airplane designs have become both more complex, requiring precise cutting, folding and gluing, and more easily available to the public. Though the rise of technology dramatically lessened the overall use of paper models in testing, technology has given the paper airplane a new lease in life as a serious pursuit for aviation enthusiasts and model builders. The Wright Brothers wind tunnel, in 1901.įollowing the aviation explosion in the early 20 th century, paper airplane models remained a valuable testing asset, with Jack Northrop (a co-founder of the Lockheed Corporation) using them to test experimental new designs in the 1930s, and German designers Heinkel and Junkers using paper airplane models to establish basic performance and structural form in many important projects, such as the development of tactical bombers. In particular, as the Wrights observed the forces produced by flexing and bending the wings on their paper models, they determined that control through warping of flight surfaces would be the most effective method, leading to their developing more refined aileron and elevator control surfaces*. The Wright Brothers built many and varied paper models, and testing them in their homebuilt wind tunnel, gained a much greater understanding of the forces at play on an aircraft during flight. In the late 19 th century, modern aviation pioneers such as Sir George Cayley, Clement Ader, Charles Langley, and Alberto Santos-Dumant would test their ideas with paper models to confirm (in scale) theories before putting them into practice with larger, heavier craft.īut perhaps the most significant and influential use of paper airplanes in aircraft design happened over a four-year period, from 1899 – 1903, in Dayton, Ohio. Leonardo da Vinci wrote of constructing a model plane from parchment, and using paper models to test his ornithopter and parachute designs. Though records point to increased and widespread manufacturing of these folded paper gliders for nearly a century after this period, no images or details remain regarding how they were constructed, or even what form these original paper aircraft took.įor over a thousand years after this, paper aircraft models were built and studied by the pioneers of powered flight in order to design larger machines. The exact origins of paper airplanes are lost in the mists of ancient early civilization, but evidence points to folded paper gliders being developed and refined concurrently in Ancient China and Japan sometime around 500 BC. Considered by most in modern times to be a child’s pursuit, the humble paper airplane has played an important part in man’s quest for flight.
Paper airplanes have a more noble and storied history that their slender, folded frames bespeak.
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