Whitewings
- Thread starter paperquestor
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- Apr 5, 2013
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This is the furthest flying glider I have ever made. It is my own design. It is hollow, with no internal weights. It, standing 30 feet into the air got over a 300' foot glider with this plane, it banked right, into the wind, climbed, and ended at the end of the train station I lived near, at the time. It did not crash, it landed perfectly. The nose was a lifting surface, that translated into the main wing. The large aileron was placed to get the center of gravity where it should be, with the angle of incidence also set by the tilt of the rudder, holding the elevator. It had flaps and ailerons, but I found If I built them square, just the major adjustments when made, and a proper airfoil, the glider is perfectly flat on the bottom, gave for almost dart like flights inside. 
Nice design!This is the furthest flying glider I have ever made. It is my own design. It is hollow, with no internal weights. It, standing 30 feet into the air got over a 300' foot glider with this plane, it banked right, into the wind, climbed, and ended at the end of the train station I lived near, at the time. It did not crash, it landed perfectly. The nose was a lifting surface, that translated into the main wing. The large aileron was placed to get the center of gravity where it should be, with the angle of incidence also set by the tilt of the rudder, holding the elevator. It had flaps and ailerons, but I found If I built them square, just the major adjustments when made, and a proper airfoil, the glider is perfectly flat on the bottom, gave for almost dart like flights inside.
Okay John, now ya gotta show us plans, so we can make that Beautiful glider.
- Apr 5, 2013
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- 10,214
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The top is made from one sheet of paper folded in half. I then drew the planform (top view) one one side. Using my fingers, I then formed the sides, making a radius on the top spline slowly widening till it reached the leading edge of the wing. The spline started from almost nothing at the tip, till it was around 1/2" inch. This gave the long nose lift. Now the sides of the long nose are on the same plane as the leading edge of the wings. At this point, you form a wing foil, (this just takes practice, too big, too slow, not enough, no lift). I then took another sheet (I used 110 lb. card stock, and did the same procedure for the rudder. The trick here is to cut the rudder oversized, as you will have to make symmetric foils on each side. This gives the rudder drag, which brings up the nose, and Rudder authority (keeps the glider going straight). When you duplicate the rudder shapes (Mirrored to each other), you then glue the back trailing edges with a flat, depending on the model size, mine were usually 18" inches long, and make a flat around 1/2". glued together, keeping everything symmetric. This will be your rudder.
Find the center of lift by looking own the wing, and seeing where the lift will occur the most, usually just at the highest part of the camber. This is your center of lift. The center of Gravity must be infront of the Center of lift. You get this big making a jig to balance the plane, with the rudder assembly, with the elevator mounted, which can be a single sheet, as long as it has a camber, to give lift. The opening on top of the rudder will allow you to use a good dollop of glue to attach the Elevator, which should be folded, to form a small "V", which will stabillize the craft. The elevator must be big. By sliding the rudder back and forth, with the plain on the center of gravity jig, you place the tail assembly so that the nose is downwarn. This will make the plane nose heavy, and the plabe will fly. At this point, you either angle the tail assembly to make the plane rise, or cut elevators into the tail plane. When you make a few of these, you will get the feel for it. Do not use Canard wings, they mess up the whole airflow characteristics. In short, with what I have just written, you should be able to bang out your first one, and dial it in, till you have a model have flying the way you want. If you throw it, and the nose goes to the left or right, you have too much aileron, or too much of an angle on the Elevator.. To make the bottom, you simply trace out the aircraft on the bottom of the body, on a flat sheet, and glue it to the fuesalage. You do this before you balance the craft's Center of Gravity. I always added doublers on the nose inside, as it can take a beating, but is also easily fixable. God Luck!
Find the center of lift by looking own the wing, and seeing where the lift will occur the most, usually just at the highest part of the camber. This is your center of lift. The center of Gravity must be infront of the Center of lift. You get this big making a jig to balance the plane, with the rudder assembly, with the elevator mounted, which can be a single sheet, as long as it has a camber, to give lift. The opening on top of the rudder will allow you to use a good dollop of glue to attach the Elevator, which should be folded, to form a small "V", which will stabillize the craft. The elevator must be big. By sliding the rudder back and forth, with the plain on the center of gravity jig, you place the tail assembly so that the nose is downwarn. This will make the plane nose heavy, and the plabe will fly. At this point, you either angle the tail assembly to make the plane rise, or cut elevators into the tail plane. When you make a few of these, you will get the feel for it. Do not use Canard wings, they mess up the whole airflow characteristics. In short, with what I have just written, you should be able to bang out your first one, and dial it in, till you have a model have flying the way you want. If you throw it, and the nose goes to the left or right, you have too much aileron, or too much of an angle on the Elevator.. To make the bottom, you simply trace out the aircraft on the bottom of the body, on a flat sheet, and glue it to the fuesalage. You do this before you balance the craft's Center of Gravity. I always added doublers on the nose inside, as it can take a beating, but is also easily fixable. God Luck!
- Apr 5, 2013
- 13,876
- 10,214
- 228
I just remembered that throwing this thing was a pain in the butt, so I cut out a hole about one inch from the rear, so I could get my finger in there, to throw it very hard. I threw one off of Bear Mountain, with my sister watching, it took off almost straight up, at a level attitude , caught a thermal I guess, and instantly disappeared. I should have made it black. These fly very fast, and stable. I wish I had put an address on it, so someone could tell me where they found it. Of course, if it poked someone in the eye, I wouldn't want to know. 
I purchase mine at 10 t0 15 dollars, now I see the same ones going for $30 to $50 on Ebay. Have they stop production? You can get some similar planes on Canon site for free.
- Apr 5, 2013
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Forget Whitewings. Go to this site, and get some flying paper models that actually have fuselages, fly great (depending on your knowledge of aerodynamis), and are of real aircraft. They're all FREE!
- Apr 5, 2013
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When I worked at Sikorsky's, these were the kind of paper planes I made for fun. I made them bigger though, as I threw most of them off of big hills, and lost quite a few to the winds, but I always tried to make planes that looked like the real ones, and flew. The website in the previous site has great aircraft, and if you just Google the basics of flight, in an image, you will make excellent models, and happen to glide excellently.
Angle of incidence seems to never be mentioned, but is the single most importance placement of the wing, so:
The rest of the principles involved:
Angle of incidence seems to never be mentioned, but is the single most importance placement of the wing, so:
The rest of the principles involved:
Sooo... Just to satate your curiosity... I researched this a couple years back.
The company ran out of business making them.
So, I took to Amazon and found Ninomiya's books. "Jet-Age Jamboree" and "Airborne All-Stars" for around $20 USD each used. Sometimes idiots list them for considerably more, but if you wish list the item, and wait a couple years (like I did for "Jet-Age") you'll likely see a listing for a very reasonable price pop up. Then you just scan and print your own, as the patterns are marked as being copyable for personal use only. To my knowledge, the copyrights on these books are still valid (from 1968), so I cannot just scan them and upload them here.
- Apr 5, 2013
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The paper models in "WhiteWings" were derivative. There was not an original paper plane in that book. I have one stored in the labyrinth that I call my Barn. I was really disappointed. I made a few of them, tracing the design out of of the book, nothing great, a primer for an 8 year old.
The price is going up because people are paying it, it's market driven, that's it. A lot of people cut up the book and hence, not that many around. Simple economics.
You could improve the designs, then do whatever you want with them. As I wrote, all the planes in that book came from other sources, just a little modified, it was a different era, and copying stuff wasn't that easy. A lawyer told me once a 10% change to a object makes it a new object. That's why pharmaceuticals do minor recipe changes to their about to expire patents, to get more time. Of course, if you do make a batch of paper planes, credit them to yourself.
The price is going up because people are paying it, it's market driven, that's it. A lot of people cut up the book and hence, not that many around. Simple economics.
You could improve the designs, then do whatever you want with them. As I wrote, all the planes in that book came from other sources, just a little modified, it was a different era, and copying stuff wasn't that easy. A lawyer told me once a 10% change to a object makes it a new object. That's why pharmaceuticals do minor recipe changes to their about to expire patents, to get more time. Of course, if you do make a batch of paper planes, credit them to yourself.
Then there is taking a 3-view scale drawing of a plane, and tracing it in Inkscape or similar vector drawing program...
https://www.zealot.com/resources/su-47-berkut-glider.1858/
...Made a pretty good flier. Needs some tweaking though. 1:1 scale aerodynamics don't always translate to smaller scale gliders!
https://www.zealot.com/resources/su-47-berkut-glider.1858/
...Made a pretty good flier. Needs some tweaking though. 1:1 scale aerodynamics don't always translate to smaller scale gliders!
- Apr 5, 2013
- 13,876
- 10,214
- 228
Very true, same thing about ships, though ships have been done for so long, the shipwrights know what will work by using certain scales. Planes, on the other hand, don't scale well at all, but if you get the center of lift and center of gravity right, and make a proper wing foil, flat bottom, or laminar flow (which requires a larger angle of incidence, or you will have to have the elevator pulled up, and that will cause too much drag), the models will fly, and usually pretty good.