This is impressive. And you think it's hard to trim out a stunt model? Try getting a folded piece of paper to do what you want it to!
. It's usually a rule for records and competition that the airplane has to be made from a folded sheet of paper. I would be interested to know how many attempts he made before he got the record flight. I have entered and won a couple of paper airplane contests and won duration but never tried distance because of the difficulties. Notice the flight path of the airplane? It was truly flying on it's wings and not just a pointy ballistic piece of paper and that is what is impressive to me. Just think of how much further it would have gone if it was able to go a straighter path, and the wall wasn't in the way! Looks like the building was just big enough.
I don't know what the current duration record is, but it was held by a guy named Ken Blackburn at about 17 seconds. He has published a couple of paper airplane books. He was at one time an employee of McDonnell-Douglas here in St. Louis. I met him at an indoor contest once several years ago at the old Parks College. He had just set the record and was feeling pretty cocky about the 13 or 14 second flights that he had put up in demonstration before the contest began. He had no idea what indoor free flight model aviation was all about. I showed him my "Coot" indoor glider and he wasn't too impressed. He asked me how long it would stay up, and I told to watch and put up a 34 second flight on my first throw. He even had a watch on it. He just scratched his head and didn't stick around too much longer. He just didn't have any idea what a properly carved chunk of wood could do, but this little story does illustrate the difficulty in getting good performance out of a folded piece of paper, and Ken just didn't stick around long enough for me to discuss it with him.
Dan McEntee
Topic: NEW WORLD RECORD !!!! - It's not CL but is still a plane. (Read 1099 times)