Paper Airplane Lift & Drag Analysis (2D)

This 2D companion drives real fixed-wing flight dynamics from the side: a thin-airfoil lift curve and a parasitic-plus-induced drag polar, both functions of angle of attack, feed a Runge–Kutta integration of the full equations of motion so the glide path you see is computed, not drawn. Four launch parameters — wing area, launch speed, launch angle and initial angle of attack — all measurably change the trajectory, and pushing the angle of attack past roughly 15° triggers a genuine aerodynamic stall: lift collapses, the plane's flight path angle falls away from its fixed pitch, and it drops instead of gliding.