Author: Miss Cellania / Source: Neatorama
(Image credit: Flickr user Russ)
How many reams of paper does it take to make a record-breaking paper plane? Its engineer, John Collins, explains.
Let’s talk about the record you broke for the farthest distance traveled by a paper airplane indoors—226 feet, 10 inches.
The previous record was 207 feet, four inches. It stood for about nine years. The [last] guy who set it was only 15 years old. Joe Ayoob and I -Joe is my thrower; he’s a professional football player- set our record in February of 2012.
I didn’t realize this is a team effort.
It was really the first time a team had tried. I realized fairly quickly that I didn’t have the arm to throw anything 200 feet. The old method for breaking the distance record was to make [a paper airplane that was basically] a fancy-looking stick with fins: Fold the paper as compact as you can; the whole wingspan is about an inch. Put the wings at equal angles to each other, so if the plane rolled to one side, it didn’t matter. Throw it really hard at a 45-degree angle, and it would do this parabolic arc because of gravity and crash into the finish line. That’s how I started to do it.
How was your plane different?
I built a real flying machine- a glider. It’s got a wingspan close to six inches. The old kind of plane took about three seconds to go 200 feet; mine took about nine seconds. When you watch the video, you can see that Joe released the plane almost straight in front of him. The plane climbed on its own, dropped over the top, really flared on the last third of the way, and glided gently across the finish line.
How can people see this world record flight?
Search for “world record paper airplane” or “John Collins world record.” That’ll get you to my YouTube channel, where there’s a video of the plane flying, folding instructions, and an offer of a $1,000 reward to use my plane and break my record.
You’re the record holder in distance. What are the other records?
Duration is the amount of time your plane can stay in the air. Another record is for simultaneous launch, the number of people who have launched a paper airplane at the same time.
Are there competitions?
Red Bull runs a global competition. It has a different set of rules than Guinness. Guinness allows you to try to break anybody’s record at any time: You get the most updated set of rules and then start working on breaking the record.
How did you get into this?
I never got out of it. Most people get over paper airplanes when they’re 9 or 10. I just kept going. Then I took up origami and studied that for about 10 years. I was one of the first people to take all of those techniques back to high-performance paper airplanes. I thought, “Wouldn’t it be cool to be able to, with one sheet of paper, create a really superior flying machine?”
What are some origami techniques you applied to paper airplanes?
Accuracy of folding, the crispness of the fold, the symmetry on the model. When you’re trying to
get a model to stand up on four…
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