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Built a gigantic paper airplane, need some help.
billwill
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I was pretty bored yesterday so I made one. I'll have pics up tomorrow, but to give you a general idea of what it looks like, its a little under 7 feet long, 5 feet wide (at the widest point), and maybe 2 to 3 feet tall.
I put three light pieces of wood (like thin long rods) spaced evenly over the top to hold the wings up, so the pieces of wood are perpendicular to the body of the plane, and its working pretty well to support them (I got some screws that were short with wide heads and screwed from under the wing into the wood to keep them in place). I put a few pieces of cardboard in the body with some spray-on glue, and its serving well enough to hold it together.
Here are the problems I'm having:
-The body of the craft is floppy where it connects with the wings. As in, when the plane is upside down, the body will move a bit to the left or right, and I'd like to keep it as perpendicular to the wings as possible. Just to clarify, the actual body is rigid, its just where it connects that is the issue.
-Any ideas for protection? I'd rather the craft not be totaled when it lands. The only solution I can think of that wouldn't drastically reduce the aerodynamics is just to have someone catch it, but what about when it veers off course and has a rough landing?
-Names? I have a can of gold spray paint, and I believe I have some chrome spray paint laying around. I want to stencil something on it.
Thanks!
I put three light pieces of wood (like thin long rods) spaced evenly over the top to hold the wings up, so the pieces of wood are perpendicular to the body of the plane, and its working pretty well to support them (I got some screws that were short with wide heads and screwed from under the wing into the wood to keep them in place). I put a few pieces of cardboard in the body with some spray-on glue, and its serving well enough to hold it together.
Here are the problems I'm having:
-The body of the craft is floppy where it connects with the wings. As in, when the plane is upside down, the body will move a bit to the left or right, and I'd like to keep it as perpendicular to the wings as possible. Just to clarify, the actual body is rigid, its just where it connects that is the issue.
-Any ideas for protection? I'd rather the craft not be totaled when it lands. The only solution I can think of that wouldn't drastically reduce the aerodynamics is just to have someone catch it, but what about when it veers off course and has a rough landing?
-Names? I have a can of gold spray paint, and I believe I have some chrome spray paint laying around. I want to stencil something on it.
Thanks!
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billwill on
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Diagram
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I know , the diagram sucks, but hopefully you get the idea. Not an aeronautical engineer however so i don't know how this will affect the aerodynamics. Maybe test it on some small scale rigs first.
the other would be to get some small metal L brackets and attach them to the wood on the wings and onto a similar piece of wood on the body. depending on the strength of the wood this might work.
the easiest way would have probably been to make one long structural piece across the top of both wings instead of underneath them