Paper Airplanes and How to Fold Them - Three Original* 'ePlanes' I Designed in the Nineties
Designing paper airplanes is something I've done quite a lot of, particularly in my school years where a lot of take home notes and newsletters got folded into paper airplanes.
Not that I was fanatical about it. I only really designed planes when a random piece of paper made it into my possession, and I just found trying to design a new paper airplane a more interesting challenge than making the same airplane every time.
I did, however, have three rules for creating a successful design, with my goal being to design a paper airplane that looked more like an actual airplane:
Planes must be made from one piece of standard A4 copy paper.
No cutting or tearing of the paper allowed.
The finished plane must be able to glide in a stable flight.
Some time back in the 1990s I came up with a completely original design that looked clearly like a jet, that came to be known as the 'ePlane TETMKI', when I published a website with the folding instructions of several of my designs in 2000.
That was way before online video had really found its feet (which wouldn't really happen until YouTube appeared in 2006). At the request of my Facebook followers I've made videos of the TETMKI, and two variations, that modify classic, age old staple designs into similarly styled jets.
The videos are posted below with some notes on their design. All of these are recommended for advanced pilots who know how to tweak a paper airplane design for better flight and, more importantly, have good throwing technique.
ePlane TETMKI and TETMKIa
As far as I know the fold of this design is completely original. Back when I designed it I'd never seen anything that looked like this in any of the paper airplane books I'd seen (and I'd seen a lot of them at this point).
The first version was actually the MKIa with the landing gear down but I don't think it really adds anything to the design or its ability to fly.
Today there are many paper airplane designs online that use the inside reverse fold to create that jet plane look. I'm not saying my humble little, short lived, ePlanes website from 2000 revolutionised paper airplane design, I just hadn't seen anything that looked like that prior to my site.
ePlane MOD-TETMKII
After creating the MKI I realised this classic stunt plane had the right fold structure to convert it to the jet plane look. While it still flies well, the classic plane is way more fun to fly.
My friends and I used to make this classic all the time because you can throw it straight up high, and it takes a fair while for it to glide back down.
ePlane MOD-TETMKIII
It was a no brainer to apply the same jet plane conversion to the classic dart, creating a plane that can be thrown even further than the original design.
I recently discovered that this design is a variation of the classic Concorde paper airplane design, which I had never seen prior to the year 2000 anywhere. Which is why my design has a different profile to the classic with the nose fold on mine extending only halfway down the fuselage.
Again, I'm not saying the Concorde design was derived from mine, just that maybe it's possible.
* With regard to saying 'Original' in the headline to this article, I came up with these designs on my own back in the 1990's. As mentioned I'd never seen these designs anywhere, but I'm not ruling out that it's entirely possible (and very likely) anyone could have come up with these designs. Particularly the two classic plane mods which are, two obvious, and relatively easy, folds to apply. I am fairly certain the MKI is completely my design, even if it looks similar to others in the final appearance.
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