The forces of the University claim to be assembling robots and bombs. Despite a lack of evidence that such robots exist, it is time the forces of Revolution began preparing for such an eventuality. People of the Revolution, I present to you:

The Revolutionary Air Force

Should this revolution come to bloodshed, rest assured that the forces of Revolution can maintain strategic control over the movement of forces and supplies, as well as gather valuable reconnaisance information.

Here I shall attempt to document this first aircraft of the RAF.

Opinions differ greatly on what the "rules" are for paper airplanes. I take a fairly purist approach. It should be paper, and only paper. It's not origami, so cutting is ok, but I don't like to use tape, glue, staples, paperclips, or other non-paper materials. Other materials dramatically change the game -- if I'm using glue, I might as well build a paper composite airplane, and that's far from the spirit of the Task. The need for tape or balance weights speaks to inadequacy of design, I believe.

I settled for a relatively modest definition of gaint -- I chose a 36" wingspan as my goal.

Several designs were tried and rejected before I settled on one I liked. Most designs based around a traditional letter-sized piece of paper run into problems because the wings get too floppy if you scale them up.

For paper, I used a relatively heavy brown mailing paper, purchased in roll form. Not because I think it's best (it's clearly not; something lighter would be better) but because it was easy to find. It didn't fold well because it was too stiff and thick, but it wasn't stiff enough to help with the wing strength issues meaningfully. Roll paper also presents another challenge -- the paper has a distinct curl to it, that can be very challenging to remove.

The design I ended up with is a simple high aspect ratio glider. It required two main modifications for the large size: the upturned wingtips are there to stiffen the wings, not for aesthetic or aerodynamic purposes (the cool look is an entirely incidental feature ;) ). The second was a truly gargantuan amount of up elevator, required because the forward section refused to lie flat. The forward section poking up creates a nose-down pitch moment and results in a diving flight into the ground; the elevator trim corrects this, but not without cost -- the glide performance of the final version is much reduced from its smaller cousin.

The glider was folded from a strip of paper 8"x36", cut lengthwise from the roll; the folds were performed such that the natural curl of the paper (still present after significant flattening attempts) curved the wingtips slightly up. The front was folded back along a line at 1", and this was repeated 4 times. Paper thickness and stiffness in folding thus resulted in an overall length of about 3.75". When the upturned winglets (1/2" on either side) are taken into account, the overall wingspan is 35" -- close enough to gaint for my purposes, I decided.

Without further rambling, what you've all been waiting for: the pictures.