Fun with Paper Aeroplanes

[Mulboyne]

Photo: Asahi

Pilots and cabin crew of JAL launch paper aeroplanes in a gym near Haneda airport. The group took lessons from the Japan Paper Aeroplane Association. Last month, the association held their national design contest and yesterday hosted a free event to make paper space shuttles:



If you get the bug then the association's homepage has details of how to fold popular designs. Googling "paper airplane" will also throw up a lot more information in English.

[Charles]

If you like paper airplanes, you should read The Great International Paper Airplane Book. I had this when I was a kid, and still after 35+ years, it's the classic book on paper airplanes. I made a paper scale model of the Wright Flyer from plans in this book.

[Mulboyne]

Guardian: Paper plane enthusiast sets flight record

With a bend of the knees and an arch of the back, a Japanese engineer today set a world flight record for a paper plane, keeping his hand-folded construction in the air for 26.1 seconds. Using a plane specially designed for "long haul" flights, Takuo Toda narrowly failed to match his lifetime best of 27.9 seconds, a Guinness world record set in Hiroshima earlier, but achieved with a plane that was held together with cellophane tape. Today's flight, inside a Japan Airlines hangar near Haneda airport in Tokyo, was the longest by an unadulterated model. "I felt a lot of pressure," Toda told the Associated Press after his feat. "Everything is a factor ‑ the moisture in the air, the temperature, the crowd." The record was all the more satisfying for having been achieved with a plane that stayed true to the traditions of origami, the traditional Japanese art of paper folding. He folded his 10cm aircraft by hand from a single sheet of paper and did not use scissors or glue. Toda, who is president of the Japan origami aeroplane association, said the secret to a successful launch was to avoid a flat trajectory and get the plane as high in the air as possible to give it time to circle slowly towards terra firma. "It's really a sport," he said. "The throwing technique is very delicate"...more...