The Paper Aircraft Released Into Space (PARIS) team has spent the last couple of days working on a definitive Vulture 1-X wing structure, having already tried and rejected a few options.

Naturally, we took on board all of your suggestions as to how we might go about making an aircraft wing entirely from paper, and reckon we've cracked it.

First up, we looked for suitable wing profile, and decided to nab one from the Horten Ho IV, which will need no introduction to the aircraft enthusiasts among you.

Since we're using paper straws for the main Vulture 1-X structure, it made sense to convert this profile into a paper rib which can accept four continual spars, as you can see in our template pic:

So, we printed out a load of these ribs, punched out the holes for the straws with a 6mm leather punch and bodged together a proof of concept section of wing.

On the next couple of pages are the construction snaps. Don't bemoan the sloppy hot glue technique - we knocked this up in around half an hour and the final structure of the wings will be lovingly and carefully put together with epoxy...

First up, here are three ribs with a matching number of straws running through:

Once they were glued together, we attached the leading edge straw:

Obviously, the ribs are a tad flimsy, so we put in some spacers to maintain the correct distance between the straws:

The trailing edge is even flimsier, so cue some spacer struts to keep it in good shape:

It was also important to add some diagonal reinforcement to stop the spars skewing:

Finally, we used some paper to form the leading and trailing edges:

We're pretty pleased with the result, and for the record the whole section of wing shown above is a featherweight 10 grammes.

We'll certainly need to construct the final wings in a jig, so our next task is to put that together and get on with giving the Vulture 1-X some lift. ®

Additional PARIS resources

• Our dedicated PARIS section, with all previous updates, is right here.
• New to PARIS? We have a basic mission summary here (pdf).
• Our fledgling Flickr page, with all previous photos.
• Check out our YouTube channel - currently featuring a few camera tests.