How to fold a paper airplane that actually flies

Most paper planes fail for one of four reasons, and none of them is the design. The creases are soft. The two wings are not folded on the same line. The plane is being thrown the wrong way for its shape. Or it is being flown in a room with a window open.

Fix those and almost any traditional fold will fly. Here is how, and at the end there is a free plane to print.

1. A soft fold is a bad plane

Paper only remembers a crease that has been forced. This is the single commonest reason a plane will not fly, and it is the easiest to fix.

Line it up, then press. Bring the two edges together and hold them there before any part of the crease is flattened. Press from the middle outwards. If you press first and line up after, the fold slides and the plane comes out crooked.

Use a hard edge. Fold on a table, not on your lap. Then run a thumbnail, a ruler or the back of a spoon along every crease. A crease you can feel a ridge on is a crease that will hold.

Press thick folds twice. A nose folded over three times will spring open in the air unless it is really flattened.

2. Both wings, or it turns

A paper plane is symmetrical or it turns. Whenever an instruction says to do something to both sides, do the second one by matching it against the first rather than measuring again. Fold one wing, then turn the plane over and fold the other one to match it.

Then hold the finished plane up and look down the nose. The two wings should make a shallow V, and they should look identical. If one is lower than the other, open them both out and refold them together.

3. Different planes want different throws

This is where most disappointment comes from. A glider thrown hard climbs, stalls and falls out of the sky. A dart thrown gently never gets going at all.

Darts — the narrow, pointed ones. Pinch the body near the nose, bring your arm back past your ear, and throw hard and level with your eyes. Aim at a point on the far wall, not at the floor.

Gliders — the wide ones with a thick folded nose. Rest the body on two fingers underneath and push it forward at about walking pace, nose very slightly up. Let go, do not flick.

Thrown correctly, a glider crosses a room slowly and lands flat. Thrown like a dart, it will do nothing at all, and the child folding it will conclude they folded it wrong.

4. Bend the back corners. That is nearly the whole secret

A plane that dives, stalls or turns is not a failed plane. It is an untrimmed one. Two small bends fix nearly everything:

• Dives into the floor? Bend the back corners of both wings up, about the width of a fingernail.

• Rears up, stops, falls? The opposite. Bend both back corners down a little, or throw it more gently.

• Rolls onto its back? The wings are too flat. Open them into a wider V.

• Always turns left? Bend the back corner of the right wing up a little. One wing only.

• Always turns right? Bend the back corner of the left wing up.

Change one thing at a time. Bend it, throw it, look. Bending three things at once and throwing it hard tells you nothing.

The room matters more than you think

A paper plane weighs less than a draught does. A good glider needs about eight metres before it has finished doing anything interesting, so a hallway beats a bedroom, and a still morning beats a windy afternoon. Indoors and out of any draught is where the long flights happen.

Print a plane and try it

Here is one, free: the Sparrow. Four folds, no scissors, no glue, and it is deliberately the most forgiving plane there is — a slow, straight glide across a room, which makes it the right one to practise throwing with.

• Free plane — A4 (UK, Europe, most of the world)

• Free plane — US Letter (USA, Canada)

Three sheets. Print at 100%, not "fit to page", put the printed side face down, and fold along the printed lines.

Ten planes, one for each kind of flight

The Sparrow is one of ten in the Paper Plane Template Pack. The other nine each do something different in the air: the Hammer is built for distance, the Hawk stays up longest, the Kestrel goes where you point it, and the Boomerang comes back to your feet.

Every plane comes as a template with the fold lines already printed on it, so a six-year-old can match a crease to a line instead of guessing where the middle is. Thirty-four sheets in all, in A4 and US Letter, including a flight log, target rings and twelve challenge cards. Ages 6 to 12.