Paper Airplane

This instructable is for making a basic paper airplane.

Begin by obtaining the necessary materials to construct your paper airplane. Get an 8 1/2"x 11" piece of paper. You may also need scissors but these are optional.

Grab your piece of paper and place it in front of you like in the picture. (The paper should be portrait (taller) and not landscape (shorter).

Fold the piece of paper in half by matching the top two corners together and the bottom two corners. After this fold your piece of paper should be tall and thin like in the picture.

Unfold your piece of paper and place it a way that makes your paper form a really little tent or mountain.

We will now start more of the important folding steps for your airplane. In order to make sure your airplane flies in a more efficient way make sure to really crease your folds.

Pull the top right hand corner of the paper down to the middle crease. As you pull the corner down, match the top edge to the edge of the crease. You fold should create a perfect triangle like in the picture.

Repeat step 6 with the left hand corner of the piece of paper also aligning the top edge of the paper to the crease of the middle fold.

Fold your piece of paper in half along the middle crease again and turn the paper so it looks like the picture above. Note-make sure you fold the piece of paper like you did in the beginning. Don't fold it back the other way. You need access to the triangles from the previous folds.

Make another fold by taking the diagonal edge at the top left hand corner of the previous picture and pulling it down to go alongside the bottom edge of the paper. Pay special attention to the corner or nose of the airplane to make sure it stays neat. After the fold your paper should look like the picture in this step.

Flip over your paper to the side that has one less fold. It should look like the picture.

Repeat step 9 on this side using the picture from step 8 for reference. Pull the diagonal edge on the right hand side down to go alongside the bottom edge. Pay special attention to the corner/nose of the airplane again. After the fold your airplane should look like the picture.

Flip your airplane over to the other side that was previously folded. It should look like the picture.

This step is similar to steps 9 and 11. Take the top diagonal edge from step 12 and fold it down so that edge goes alongside the bottom edge of the paper. After the fold your airplane should look like the picture.

Flip over your airplane to the side with one less fold. It should look like the picture.

Repeat step 13 on this side using the picture from step 14 for reference. Take the top diagonal edge from step 14 and fold it down so that edge goes alongside the bottom edge of the paper. After the fold your airplane should look like the picture.

Unfold the top folds of your airplane. It should look like the picture.

For reference the underside of your airplane should look like the picture.

Prepare to fly your airplane by pinching the bottom folds. See picture for reference.

Hold the plane with the wings on the top and pinching the bottom folds. And try flying your plane.

If the plane doesn't fly exactly how you'd like, look at the nose of the airplane. If it doesn't have a really pointed tip like the picture, try trimming the sides with the scissors.