How to Make an "Electronic Warfare" Tail for Your Paper Airplane

This is an "electronic warfare" tail I developed for better stability and lift on paper airplanes.

A tailplane is an important part of most all aircraft. And although some specialized aircraft like flying wings and paper airplanes avoid the requirement of having a tailplane, adding one can make your plane look cooler, and in some cases even improve performance greatly.

Electronic warfare aircraft, like the USAF EF-111A Raven, and the USN/USMC EA-6B Prowler have pods on their tailplanes which house antennae. These pods resemble--looking front-to-back, or vice versa--pine trees. 

How cool would it be to have an "electronic warfare" paper airplane? Well, this is how to add this very cool accessory.

To show you how to make this conversion, I will build off of a Super Dart paper airplane to make the 'EF12-1' Super Dart.

Required:
1 prebuilt, untaped paper airplane (a Super Dart pictured)
Scissors
Tape
Optional:
Pencil

It is very important when modifying any aircraft I've posted on Instructables.com, that you do not tape them up prior to the conversion. If you do, you will not be able to equip your paper airplane with an "electronic warfare" tailplane.

To make the tailplane, a simple cut at an obtuse angle torwards the nose of the aircraft. Then reverse the tail through the center of the aircraft to be above the wing. Then fold the plane in half and put it down.  

As your plane lies flat, push the top center fold of the fin to the wings' center. Then open it as it was before. Then fold that center fold line down to the wing root as cited in the picture (be sure not to fold the other side in the process). Then open it. Repeat on the other side.

Tape your aircraft in these 4 places. (Generally, this modification will carry over 3 common places to tape over any aircraft, though there are exceptions).

Tape your Super Dart's nose, rear, and pod together.


After this, your aircraft should appear as it does in the last two pictures.
 

Your "electronic warfare" pod is now finished. It will now provide your aircraft additional stability and lift.


You can now build fairly asymmetrical aircraft that will still fly straight and far without worry.






Enjoy!