1. Start with an ordinary sheet of 8 1/2" x 11" - 21.6 x 28 cm (U.S.standard writing paper size). The exact size is not important, it should be rectangular and not square. The paper should be at least 20 Lb. bond or copy paper.
2. Fold over the left hand corner as shown.
3. Crease.

4. Result.
5. Fold over the right hand corner.
6. Crease.

7. Result.
8. Carefully close in the sides as shown.
9. Fold down the center line from front to back.

10. Fold the resulting left hand tip up as shown.
11. Crease along the bottom edge.
12. Repeat the same procedure on the right section.

13. Fold the left hand point back.
14. Crease.
15. Mirror the same folds on the right panel.

16. Bend the left panel as shown.
17. Crease from back to front only 2/3 of the way.
18. Study photos 18 and 19 carefully. These folds are difficult to describe. Try to duplicate them as shown in the photos.

19. Mirror the folds on the right.
20. Turn the plane over and fold the point back and crease as shown.
21. Turn the plane over again. The result should be similar to the photo.

22. Crease wing as shown.
23. Moisten the crease with your tongue. Do this slowly and carefully or you could receive a painful paper cut on your tongue.
24. Carefully tear off strip of paper. Save the strip of paper because you are going to need it to make the tail.

25. To make the tail, fold down the center of the strip of paper to form a trough.
26. Tear as shown to form control surfaces. The folds should be parallel with the bottom of the trough.
27. Fold wings up.

28. Fold the right wing down as shown in photos 28 and 29. Take special care to angle this fold in such a way so that the leading edge of the wing is slightly higher than the trailing edge.
29. Study this photo and you will see that the fold is not exactly parallel with the trough at the bottom but slightly angled as described in photo 28.
30. The plane should look like this at this point.

31. Bend the wingtips up.
32. Insert tail into slot under wing.
33. Finished at last!

34. Aircraft shown with landing gears down. Note: the craft does not fly as well with the gears down.
35. Ready to fly!

Watch the Google video:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2768368762284821227&q=paper%2Bairplane
11 comments
That is the best paperplane I have ever built!!
http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/93-its-the-content-not-the-icons
Please stop with the social bookmarking icons. You might be the worst offendor I've ever seen.
you have to describe it so we can do this! it isn´t enough to see the photos... For example, I don´t see what to do after the 17th step... I would like to learn this but...as I said, I can´t cause the descriptions aren´t good...:(
well it's hard to explain, just follow the steps ;)
and i didn't wrote the text ;)
wow, pretty frustrating when I hit that step 17 and have no clue how you get to step 18. More, larger pics maybe?!
Step 17 is indeed difficult as I learned years ago from http://www.zurqui.co.cr/crinfocus/paper/airplane.html
I thought this looked familiar...
Darn!!! I was getting really excited to build the plane and then I got to the dreaded step #17 and messed up you should really try to explain that better... Thank you any ways
yep, stuck at 17, tried several times, larger pics would be better there.
For those struggling, there is a video showing how to make it on
Google Video. It clarifies the infamous step 17 nicely.
If you want to find different designs, you could try this list of
great paper planes with user ratings. (Disclaimer: I'm the site owner)
these directions are okay up to 17 then they suck
I'm only 12 and I was working through these instructions really well and then i got stuck. Guess which number I got stuck on. 17!!!!
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