Assembly/Tuning/Piloting

Never pick up your plane by the wings or stabilizers!
Always pick your plane up by the nose.

Don't worry. It won't hurt. Humans get upset when people try to pick them up by the nose, but Whitewings Paper Gliders don't mind at all. In fact, picking up a plane by the nose is the best way to protect the wings and stabilizers.

The fuselage is the most rigid part of a Whitewings glider, and the nose is the widest part of the fuselage, making it the ideal spot for gripping. Picking up your plane by the nose minimizes the risk of bumping the main wings or stabilizers and knocking them out of alignment

Storing Gliders

Gravity and time are enemies of a paper glider in storage. Over time, gravity pulls down heavily on the wings of a plane stored horizontally. This flattens the dihedral angle and can also ruin the balance of the main wings. Another enemy is dust. Dust can accumulate on the horizontal surfaces of wings and mix with the moisture in the air leaving a grungy residue. This adds extra weight to your plane, and the dirty film is hard to remove.

So what's the solution? You guessed it: store them vertically.

No, don't try to balance your gliders on their tails. Instead, you need to hang them.

Creating a Paper Airplane "Hanger" is pretty easy. All you need is about 3 feet of thick wire, twine or a thin piece of wood like a yardstick and some Whitewings clips, paper clips or clothespins. Start by stringing the twine, wire or wood up horizontally like a clothesline. Then attach the noses of your gliders to the line with clips. (Whitewings clips work the best because they're large and tend not to fall off. You can buy these online from the Whitewings Online Store.)

Hanging your gliders minimizes the effects of gravity and keeps dust and moisture off the wings. Just remember to leave enough space between the gliders on the line so the wings and veridical stabilizers don't bump into each other. One of the advantages of a rigid line like a yardstick is that the planes won't sway in the wind and otherwise move around.