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Step 4Balancing And Tuning
Now, to make any airplane, a few simple tricks can be used to give it stability and level flight:
Firstly, to gain more side-to-side stability, bend the wings up slightly, either in the middle(Known as "Dihedral") or at the tips, this makes it so not all the lift is aimed straight down, and makes it so the plane is less likely to flip to one side(not necessary, but helps a great deal if you're having problems with this).
Secondly, you want your plane to be generally aimed up, so it doesn't dive to the ground. This can be achieved by aiming the front of the elevator down, or the wings up, I'd say about 7 degrees off from each other is good(Note the off-set of angles in the pic below).
Third thing is balance, the weight of your plane must be close to directly under the wing(as low as possible also helps for stable flight), because the wing is holding most the weight while flying. Add weight to the nose until you can balance the wings(Near the back for slower flight, like pic) on your fingers like the picture(Don't stop as soon as it's "good enough", you can always remove weight).
If you follow these steps, just about ANY airplane will work, so experiment around and have fun.
Now you have a completed airplane! Aren't you proud? Why not add some detail and originality? See next step for ideas, or skip to step 6 for flight patterns and my own models.
Firstly, to gain more side-to-side stability, bend the wings up slightly, either in the middle(Known as "Dihedral") or at the tips, this makes it so not all the lift is aimed straight down, and makes it so the plane is less likely to flip to one side(not necessary, but helps a great deal if you're having problems with this).
Secondly, you want your plane to be generally aimed up, so it doesn't dive to the ground. This can be achieved by aiming the front of the elevator down, or the wings up, I'd say about 7 degrees off from each other is good(Note the off-set of angles in the pic below).
Third thing is balance, the weight of your plane must be close to directly under the wing(as low as possible also helps for stable flight), because the wing is holding most the weight while flying. Add weight to the nose until you can balance the wings(Near the back for slower flight, like pic) on your fingers like the picture(Don't stop as soon as it's "good enough", you can always remove weight).
If you follow these steps, just about ANY airplane will work, so experiment around and have fun.
Now you have a completed airplane! Aren't you proud? Why not add some detail and originality? See next step for ideas, or skip to step 6 for flight patterns and my own models.
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And for a walk-along, I'd suggest something a bit bigger. I built a great one that was just a thin foam flying wing, about 8 inches across. Good luck!