Construction materials to build a paper airplane launcher.It's much more effective than just using your wrist! It stores potential energy, which gives extra kinetic energy (motion energy) to the paper airplane-even over a short distance. In this project you will build one using a rubber band. You don't need any compressed air or electromagnets to build your own airplane catapult, however. The catapult hooks on to the plane and helps it accelerate over a much shorter distance so that it can get enough speed and lift to take off. This catapult provides extra energy from a source such as compressed air or electromagnets to help the plane gain extra speed. Airplanes can't gain enough speed to take off on their own over such a short distance, so they get an extra boost from a type of catapult (not the big wooden kind you might imagine flinging stones at castle walls). The largest aircraft carrier is just longer than 1,000 feet, which is still less than a quarter of a mile. Although aircraft carriers are huge compared with most other ships, they are very small compared with land-based airports and runways. They also need a lot of space to land safely and slow down from such high speeds.Īircraft carriers are large ships with runways on them that allow aircraft to take off and land in the open ocean. This is why airport runways are usually very long (sometimes longer than a mile): because planes need a lot of space to gain enough speed to take off. The faster an airplane goes, the more lift it generates. In order to take off, an airplane has to generate enough lift (upward force due to air pushing on the plane) to overcome its weight (downward force due to gravity). It's hard, isn't it? How could you get a paper airplane to fly far if you can use only a short distance to launch it? Try this activity to find out! Here's a challenge: Try throwing a paper airplane by moving just your wrist (don't move your elbow or shoulder).

Basic simple airplane drawing