The perfect paper aeroplane imitates the shape of an aerofoil. It should be “slightly rounded on top and flattish underneath”, according to Paul Stevenson, an engineering lecturer at the University of Surrey.
Paper aeroplanes do not have to follow this model, however. At Astrium, the European space company, Dr Elie Allouis, a mission systems engineer for the Future Science programme, told The Times: “There is an incredible variety of designs. You have the dart type of model, you have broad-winged craft and then there are circular types of aeroplane which look almost like a tube – an example of this is the ‘Napkin Paper Airplane’ on the website paperairplanes.co.uk.”
Dr Allouis has a personal fleet of ten paper aeroplanes. “They are variations on what I have seen elsewhere,” he said. He is fascinated by the way paper aeroplanes can test the same factor faced by larger-scale craft.
According to Mr Stevenson, the Japanese space aeroplanes experiment will mimic the gravitational experiment performed by Galileo to show that objects of a different mass fall at the same speed. “Normally you have atmosphere in the way, but in space a paper aeroplane will drop rather quickly. By the time it reaches the earth’s atmosphere it will be going rather quickly – there will be a danger of it burning up. But because it’s light it will start slowing down as soon as it touches even the most rarefied areas of the atmosphere.
“You need to maximise surface area and decrease mass,” Dr Allouis said. This appears to be true of both paperaeroplanes and spacecraft attempting slow reentry. “The recent winner of the X-Prize [a competition for a nongovernment organisation to design a reusable space craft] is not a blunt object coming down to earth.”