Paper Concorde That Flies

This is a graceful glider that can fly far when thrown gently. It features simple landing gear for a smooth landing.

Grab a sheet of A4 or Letter paper and make a crease-fold along the center (faint crease shown on long axis).

• In the left image, fold the top corners down as for a regular paper dart.
• In the right image, make the horizontal and diagonal creases. This will result in an advanced airplane basic fold (from which many planes can be made). The dashes indicate to fold over, while the dots/dashes indicate to fold behind.
• First, start by folding along upper left to lower right diagonal.

The next steps show how this base fold is made...

• Having folded the first diagonal in the preceding step, unfold.
• Repeat for the opposite diagonal.
• Make the horizontal fold behind and then unfold.
• Now carefully bring the sides together, bringing the top down to meet the bottom edge (Note: the pointy end may finish up beyond bottom edge, depending on the aspect ratio of the paper you are using).

Your basic advanced fold is complete. You are now ready to make the Concorde...

• Fold the top layer up.
• The next part is tricky; make crease folds along the diagonals shown in the image and then push the sides in. The dots show the hidden edge underneath; this edge will become inverted.
• Image '9' shows the fold almost done; flatten and make sure symmetry is good.

Next, we will complete the aircraft...the following steps are much easier!

• For diagram 10, as you fold the outer sides inwards to make wing edges, fold the inner flaps (shown closer to the center crease) underneath.
• Now fold the craft lengthwise in half behind.
• Crease and open out the nose section, and reverse the fold (making it inside out).
  Next, fold down the simple landing gear, fold down wings at a shallow angle, and then add tail lift for stability (make a scissor snip into back wing trailing edge by a quarter inch or so and lift for rear elevation).

Your Concorde is complete and ready to fly. Make sure the wings are level as you observe the craft from behind. Throw horizontally with a gentle forward motion. It will glide well before landing gracefully. This is our original design used everywhere. :)

There is a video of this on the Paper Plane Lab YouTube channel, and also a neat book, The Best Advanced Paper Aircraft Book 1.

The other kids have made this too with good results.

Happy Flying!