Paper plane enthusiast sets flight record

guardian ^ | 27 December 2009

[JoeProBono]

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.....

[JoeProBono]

Takuo Toda launches his paper plane

[latina4dubya]

right on...

[library user]

He folded his 10cm aircraft by hand...

He folded it using his hands? Really? What else would he use ... his toes? I guess anyone can be a writer these days.

[JoeProBono]

[JoeProBono]

http://www.10paperairplanes.com/how-to-make-paper-airplanes/06-the-stealth.html

[Kommodor]

That animated gif is one of my favorite airplane designs, it’s so ... batwingy or something.

I wonder what design Mr. Toda is using in the picture...

[lowbridge]

I can make a paper airplane stay in the air for alot longer than 20 something seconds. All I have to do is drop it off the top of the empire state building in New York.

[6SJ7]

Last year he and fellow enthusiast Shinji Suzuki, an aeronautical engineer and professor at Tokyo University, announced plans to have about 100 of their paper planes launched by a Japanese astronaut on board the international space station, 250 miles above Earth.

The 30cm planes, made from heat-resistant paper treated with silicon, survived temperatures of 250C and wind speeds of mach 7 ‑ seven times the speed of sound ‑ during testing. But the attempt was postponed after the pair acknowledged it would be all but impossible to track them during their week-long journey to Earth, assuming any of them survived the searing descent.

Toda, who received funding for the project from Jaxa, Japan's space agency, is determined not to give up and hopes to get backing from China or Russia for another attempt.

How cool would it be to catch a paper plane that made a descent from Earth orbit!

[CharlesWayneCT]

The plane that is shown folding in the GIF is one of my favorites from when I was a child.

But it doesn’t look like the plane he has in his hand.

[JoeProBono]

Fold Your Own Sky King Plane

It's (relatively) simple to re-create the paper plane that set the flight-duration record. Use a letter-size sheet.

[Charles Henrickson]

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.

The system worked.

[JoeProBono]

[Robe]

This paper helicopter was always my favorite...

Cut out HERE

[JoeProBono]

COOL!

[ottbmare]

Tape is cheating. Cutting is cheating. I’m a purist.