A giant paper airplane soared for some 10 seconds at 3,000 ft above Arizona, USA, this past week before tail stress caused it to plummet and crash into a crumpled mass on the desert floor. The 45-ft long, 800-lb paper giant, with a 24-ft wide wingspan, was made of rigid, corrugated graphic board. Based on a model by a young contest-winner, it was the result of the Pima Air & Space Museum's Giant Paper Airplane Project. The museum's project was designed to entice youngsters like 12-year-old contest-winner Arturo Valdenegro of Tucson, Ariz., to learn more about aviation and engineering.
Dubbed Arturo's Desert Eagle, the plane was attached to a chain and lifted by helicopter to a height of 2,703 feet and released, whereupon it soared at speeds of around 98 mph. The flight lasted about as long as the Wright brothers' first successful flight at Kitty Hawk, N.C., in 1903. The flight of Arturo's Desert Eagle might have lasted longer if the team had been able to release it at between 4,000 and 5,000 ft as originally planned. But wind conditions in the area forced the helicopter to let it go more than 1,000 ft lower than the target altitude.
While it was based on Valdenegro's design, the paper plane was actually designed by Art Thompson, an aviation engineer who was part of the team that engineered and constructed the Northrup-Grumman's B-2 stealth bomber for the U.S Air Force.
"For several shining moments, our huge, beautiful, silly, hubristic 45-foot paper airplane soared," museum spokesman Tim Vimmerstedt wrote on the project's website.
TAPPI
http://www.tappi.org/