How to Make the Hawk Paper Airplane

Fast, long range, lightweight and simple, the Hawk is a great little paper airplane. This plane can work as a great sky cruiser with its excellent stability and quick speed. The Hawk exemplifies how simplicity can make performance greater--owing to the reduction of weight as a result of the omission of spars. To my knowledge, this is the first "drone" paper airplane on Instructables with a mid wing.

The Hawk is essentially an advanced development of the smaller YD140-1 prototype, which I designed in April 2011. Because the YD140-1 was outperformed by the Wasp, I chose not to publish an instructable on it. However, after several months of seeing no comparable designs on Instructables, I decided a plane with a mid-mounted wing was needed here. Because I think skids should be included if possible, I reapproached the primary concept of the original prototype with the difference that the new airplane (which became the Hawk) have a longer range and skids. Eventually, after a few calculations, the Hawk was prototyped and found to be a success. After some flight testing, it proved itself worthy of being made in an instructable, and now here it is.


TAA USAF Designation: D154-1

Required:
1 Piece of 8 by 10.5 inch graph paper (4 boxes per inch)
Tape
Pencil
Stapler
Ruler
Scissors

First, begin by folding your your graph paper in half (excluding three boxes on the perforated side). Once the paper has been folded appropriately, make two marks--17 full boxes apart. Use a ruler to make a straight line with the length of 17 boxes directly up 1 row of boxes from the two marks you just made. Then make the elevators, rudder and counterweight as shown. Follow the photograph markings. Then, four boxes back from the rear of the counterweight, mark a line that stretches 2 boxes further back. 1 box back from the beginning of this line, make a dotted line vertically. Once all is marked out, cut out the fuselage.

After the fuselage is made, take another sheet of paper that is folded in half along the lines of boxes. Mark out 8 by 2 boxes. Then cut it out.

Solid lines indicate places to cut. Dotted lines indicate fold lines.


Note: 1 box = 0.25 inches

Begin making your rudder by separating it from the elevators. Then cut one of the two layers of paper where the rudder should be off (I usually cut off the left myself). After you've cut these 6 boxes (3 by 2) off, you may discard them.

After having cut out all of the fuselage. Begin folding it along the dotted lines. After you've folded all the lines correctly, you should now cut along the line in the middle of the fuselage. Do this by folding the fuselage to the right, making a cut, and repeating the fold to the left. Then tape your fuselage together at the front, back, tailplane leading edge and across the counterweight fold.

Now it is time to work with your Hawk's wing. Separate the fuselage around the cut you made. Then put the wing through the fuselage and pull half of it through. Then fold the two halves up on each side of the fuselage. The apply a small piece of tape to the underside of the wings while they are folded up flush with the fuselage. Once its done, fold the wings back down.

Now that the tape has been taken care of, fold the wings back up. Then, pull the tips of each wing's outer boxes down to their own edges, halving them. Once they have been halved, unfold the wings. The airframe should be able to sit upright with its ventral winglets supporting it. Once done, apply one staple to the front (over the counterweight fold).

Because it is very lightweight, the Hawk is a fast little plane. Although it has a straight wing, it is still able to fly quite quickly. At launch give your Hawk a quick but gentle toss. Landings and storage conditions should be pretty mild for this plane, because of the Hawk's ventral winglets, which double as skids. Due to its long wing and broad control surfaces, additional devices can be worked into the basic airframe, such as: ailerons, flaps, elevators and a rudder. Enjoy!