Straw-Launchable Plane Glider

This is my first upload here – I spent a huge amount of time over the last few weeks designing and perfecting this, and in the end I decided to share it.  This is a working, balanced, aerodynamic glider that can be thrown, or launched from a straw.

It flies like a paper airplane and is designed using similar principles.  The tail provides stability and the wings provide lift.

It works decently enough to fly across a living room.  It's like a paper airplane; there is a bit of hit/miss -- sometimes you get the angle wrong and it just flops over.  Works better indoors; it's too light to hold stability against random wind.

You get more power and aiming accuracy if you launch by holding your finger on the plane while the pressure builds up, and then launch by releasing your finger.  

Keep your aim horizontal – it's a plane, not a rocket; it was designed to fly horizontally.  It actually flies smoother if you aim slightly down.  If the angle is too high it will nose up and stall.

Instructions:

I have scaled the model so the INSIDE of the tube is exactly 10mm.  You will need to measure your straw, add 0.5 - 1.0 mm, and scale the model before you print it.  The straw should be snug but slide in & out smoothly.

Printing tips:

I printed with .2mm layer height and a .4mm nozzle.  You will need some supports for the wings, but the basic “snug” or “organic” will suffice.  Print at least 2 at a time to give the layers sufficient time to cool.  

Turn on “avoid crossing perimeters” so that you don't get stringing inside the tube.

For material I recommend ABS – it is cheap, lightweight, and you can strengthen it in post-processing by applying acetone or nail polish.

Other materials I've tried: 

• HIPS - really easy to work with, light like ABS, doesn't warp, but more prone to breaking
• PLA - ok but be careful, on a hard floor it might break
• PETG - decent
• Nylon - Really hard to print
• Nylon CF - Don't bother
• PC - Great, beautiful
• ABS/PC - Great but doesn't smooth as nicely as ABS
• TPU - Really cool if you can get it to work, but for me the dimensional accuracy isn't great so it doesn't fly as far.  Really need to be careful with the stringing too.  But the result is a soft toy that is indestructable.

Dimension Guidelines:

This is just a guideline, estimates are from a .4mm nozzle, .2mm layer height, as given by PrusiaSlicer – but in practice mine came out about 10-15% heavier.  It's still good though.  For reference, a piece of paper is 5g.