In Part 2 of the Paper Airplane Project, each member of the team will choose two competition glider designs as potential choices for the designs that the team will enter into the competition.

Before proceeding: Go to Paper Airplane Project – Orientation, Instructions, and Documents page located in the Course Specific Information area. Download project instructions, and carry out the specific instructions for Part 2 of the project.

By the last day of Module 4, upload a document fulfilling the requirements as outlined for Part 2 of the project.

Background and Motivation
Before proceeding with this phase of the project, watch this video about the Perlan Project, (Links to an external site.) whose mission is to get two pilots to the upper limits of the stratosphere (90,000 feet) aboard a specially designed carbon fiber glider.

As you watch the video:

Observe the differences in the design of the various fixed wing aircraft shown (gliders, prop planes, and jets), and think about how the four main forces acting on aircraft – thrust, weight, lift, and drag – differ between the designs.
How does the plan for getting the glider to 90,000 feet tie into the four forces, the design of the Perlan glider, and aspects of the atmospheric pressure and density studied in Module 2?
Soaring to the Stratosphere (Times Video 04:15) (Links to an external site.)

In September 2017, the Perlan 2 glider flew to just over 52,000 feet, breaking the previous glider altitude record set by Perlan 1 back in 2006.

While our project paper gliders will be unmanned, the concepts of flight physics and the atmosphere that apply to the Perlan Project also apply to our Paper Airplane Project.