Fun
How to make a paper airplane
Pick a design, watch every fold animate step by step, print the sheet with its fold lines already on it — then throw it in the flight toy to see how weight, balance and elevator bends change the glide.
Choose a design
How to fold the Classic dart
The sharp-nosed plane most people learn first. Fast, straight and happiest with a hard throw.
Difficulty: Easy · Best for: Distance, First flights · 6 steps
Printable fold-line template
Page 1 is the A4 sheet with every fold line printed in place and numbered; page 2 has the steps. Print at 100% (Actual size) on ordinary 80 g/m² (20 lb) copy paper.
Throwing tips
- Hold the body just behind the balance point, between thumb and first finger.
- Throw firmly and straight ahead, level or a few degrees nose-up. Darts need speed to fly; a soft throw makes them dive.
Trimming (elevator bends)
- If it dives straight into the floor, bend the back edges of both wings up a little (1–2 mm of upward bend over the last centimetre).
- If it climbs, slows and drops (stalls), flatten that bend again.
- If it turns, check that both wings are the same shape and level; a small up-bend on one side makes it turn toward that side.
Test flight: Classic dart
Toy model — not a predictionA simplified 2D flight model driven by the folded shape: its wing area, weight and balance point. Drag from the hand in the direction of the throw — a longer drag throws harder — or use the sliders.
Drag on the picture or press Throw.
- Weight:
- 5.0 g
- Wing area:
- 182 cm²
- Wingspan:
- 10.8 cm
- Balance point:
- 161 mm behind the nose
- Balance on the wing:
- 33% of average chord
- Steady glide:
- 3.2 m/s, 2.5 : 1
Weight assumes 80 g/m² paper. The model treats the plane as one flat, rigid wing: lift and drag of a thin plate, a centre of pressure that moves back as the nose rises, and bent-up elevators that add a nose-up moment. Real flights also depend on crease quality, wing symmetry, twist and air currents.
Play and explore in your browser. No account needed.
Frequently asked questions
What is the easiest paper airplane to make?
The Easy kids plane and the Classic dart need only four or five folds: a centre crease, the top corners folded to the centre, the plane folded in half and the wings folded down. The dart adds one more fold of the slanted edges to the centre, which gives it its sharp nose. Both are marked Easy on this page.
Which paper airplane flies the farthest?
Distance depends much more on the throw and on careful, symmetric folding than on the design. Darts and the Nakamura lock carry the same weight of paper on a smaller wing, so they fly faster and suit hard, straight throws; broad-winged gliders fly slower and are better at staying up from a gentle launch.
Why does my paper airplane nosedive or stall?
A plane that dives usually needs a little up-elevator: bend the back edges of both wings up by a millimetre or two. A plane that climbs, slows down and drops (a stall) has too much up-bend or too little weight in the nose; flatten the bend or add a small paper clip to the nose. Make one small change at a time and test again.
What do the valley and mountain fold lines mean?
A valley fold bends the paper towards you, so the crease sinks like a valley; it is drawn with blue dashes. A mountain fold bends the paper away from you, so the crease rises like a ridge; it is drawn in red with a dash-dot pattern. On the printed template the lines are shown as seen from the printed side, so fold with that side facing you.
What paper is best for paper airplanes?
Ordinary copy paper of about 80 g/m² (20 lb bond) is a good choice: it holds sharp creases and is light enough to glide. Heavier paper makes a faster, heavier plane that needs a harder throw, and very thin paper tends to flutter. Always crease firmly, for example by running a thumbnail along each fold.
How accurate is the flight simulator?
It is a toy model, not a prediction. It treats the folded plane as one flat, rigid wing with the wing area, weight and balance point measured from the diagram, and uses simplified thin-plate lift and drag. It shows real tendencies — adding nose weight makes the glide faster, more up-elevator slows it down until it stalls or loops — but a real plane also depends on how neatly it is folded, on wing twist and on the air in the room.
About this tool
Making a paper airplane takes one sheet of paper and a few minutes, and the difference between a plane that flies and one that tumbles is mostly careful folding and a little trimming. This page shows eight classic designs step by step: the Classic dart, an Easy kids plane, a Classic glider, the Nakamura lock, the Bulldog dart, an Arrow with fins, a Loop stunt plane and a Hammer glider. Each diagram is drawn from the real folding geometry of the sheet, so switching between A4 and US Letter changes the proportions just as it does with real paper.
Every step shows the fold lines in the standard notation used in origami and paper airplane books — dashed lines for valley folds and dash-dot lines for mountain folds — with an arrow showing which part moves. Press the button under the diagram to watch the paper turn over its fold line. The last step opens the wings in 3D so you can see the shape the finished plane should have, including elevators and wing-tip fins where a design uses them.
The printable template turns the sheet itself into the instructions: page 1 prints every fold line at its exact position on the paper, numbered by step and marked as a valley or mountain fold as seen from the printed side, and page 2 repeats the diagrams with the text and tips. Print at 100% (Actual size); most printers cannot print to the very edge, so lines may stop a few millimetres short of it.
Throwing matters as much as folding. Darts want a firm, straight throw; gliders a gentle, level release; the stunt plane a hard throw upwards to loop. Small upward bends of the back edges (elevators) raise the nose, and a paper clip on the nose moves the balance point forward. The test flight is a simplified toy model that uses each design's wing area, weight and balance to show these effects before you try them with the real plane.