How to Download the Bonus Material of this Book.
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Contents
- Folding Papers (.pdf)
Contents
Be a Record Breaker!
Paper Airplane Records
How Airplanes Fly
Paper Airplane Folding Techniques
Test Flying Your Planes
Designing Your Own Airplanes
The Delta Dart
The Arrow
The Sprint
The Matrix
The Flying Carpet
The Condor
The Falcon
Stratus
Altostratus
Strato Taxi
Stormcloud
The Looper
Aerospike
Star Jet
Spaceship Red
Spaceship Gold
BE A RECORD BREAKER!
You will soon have a shelf full of high-performance paper airplanes, and you’ll know how to trim and fly them. The next natural step will be to think about going after a record. The two big ones, the records that are most coveted, are the flight duration record and the distance record. But you can’t just wind up, throw your plane, and claim to be best in the world. There are rules about what kind of planes are acceptable, about how and where the flights can be made, and about how the record is measured and judged. These rules are necessary to make it fair for everyone. I’ve summarized them here for you, along with some of the reasons for the rules, but both Guinness and I suggest you look them up and read them carefully before making a formal attempt. Ready, set, go!
Flight Duration Records
Duration flights must be made indoors. This is to prevent a lucky thermal or gust of wind from giving the plane a helping hand.
You will need two independent judges to make sure the rules are enforced and to measure the flight time. You will also need someone to take a video showing the entire flight from launch to landing. Guinness won’t recognize a record without the video.
Takuo Toda winding up to launch a paper airpline for a longest flight duration record attempt. Photo courtesy of Takuo Toda.
Takuo Toda casts a critical eye toward one of his planes as he checks to make sure the wings are in alignment. Photo courtesy of Takuo Toda.
You may make ten attempts, which include fouls but not flights deemed unmeasurable by the judges. This is to prevent siege assaults on the record and reduce stress on the judges.
The plane must be made of one sheet of A4 or letter size paper of less than 100 gsm weight. It may be cut, but the parts removed may not be reattached. You may use up to 25 mm by 30 mm of cellulose tape, cut or whole, to fasten folds, but for no other purpose. This rule prevents gaining an advantage by using specialized materials or designs. Everyone will be flying roughly similar origami airplanes.
The airplane is to be flown by one person, standing still on a level floor with both feet on the ground. The launch point must be level with or lower than the landing point. This rule is intended to equalize flying conditions and neutralize handicaps.
The flight time is measured from the moment the airplane leaves the thrower’s hand until it first touches the floor or any other object. If any object helps the airplane in flight, the judges will call a foul.
The time is measured with digital stopwatches to a hundredth of a second, and the two times averaged and rounded to a tenth of a second. If the judges can’t agree on a time, as when it isn’t clear to both whether the airplane struck an object or not, for example, the flight is considered void.
If any of the ten attempts exceeds the current record, the thrower must send signed statements from the judges, and the video, and color photographs, and as far as possible, newspaper clippings for independent corroboration, to Guinness for authentification.
Chris Edge’s “White Flyer” (front) and Andy Currey’s “Delta Belter” (rear) designs tied to set a record for longest duration flight in 1996. The record fell to Ken Blackburn two years later, and has been held by Takuo Toda since 2009.