Paper plane records that made history and how YOU can break one!

Get ready to reach new heights of awesomeness with these paper plane records! ✈️

The Guinness World Records 2024 book (out now!) has a whole page dedicated to the art of making paper aircrafts, full of iconic records and fun facts.

For example, did you know…

🔎The invention of the paper plane as we know it today is often attributed to the American aviation engineer Jack Northrop in the 1930s. However, the Chinese supposedly flew poison-tipped paper darts at their enemies over 2,000 years ago!

Largest paper-aircraft competition

But did you know that there is an official paper-aircraft competition held every 3 years since 2006?!

Or that the largest one was in 2022 and it attracted 61,210 competitors? 🤯

After more than 500 rounds, 171 contestants from 57 countries met in Austria for the Super Final.

There were three categories:

Distance, where Lazar Krstić (Serbia) won with a throw of 61.11 m (200 ft 5 in) – his plane flew farther than three bowling alleys in a row.
Airtime, with Rana Muhammad Usman Saeed (Pakistan) creating a square-shaped plane that stayed in the air for 16.39 sec.
Aerobatics, where Kateryna Agafonova (Ukraine) combined paper plane throwing with a spectacular 1-minute rhythmic gymnastics routine.

And of course, no cutting, tearing or gluing was allowed! 🙅‍♀️

Largest paper aircraft

Can you imagine creating the world’s largest paper plane… that actually flies?!

Yes, it’s true – invented by students at the Technical University of Braunschweig (Germany), Carolo Wilhelminchen (yes, they named the plane) had a wingspan of 18.21 m (59 ft 8 in) – that’s longer than a Brachiosaurus’s height! 🦕

To create it they needed 70 m² (750 sq ft) of paper and 200 tubes of superglue.

And yes, it did fly – a whole 18 metres (59 ft)!

Farthest flight by a paper aircraft

You may recognize this record broken by Dillon Ruble from USA, who fell in love with paper airplanes… at first flight. 🤪

Dillon was helped by his two friends, Nathaniel Erickson and Garrett Jensen – they all studied aerospace and mechanical engineering together, and shared the same passion!

Their record-breaking throw took 4 months to plan…

Such dedication! 🙏🏽

The result? A next-level paper plane that flew a distance of 88.31 m (289 ft 9 in). 😮

You can read Dillon’s full story, and find out how he did it, here.

And see the video of his epic throw here:

More records

Longest time aloft for a paper aircraft. The longest time a paper plane has stayed in the air is 29.2 seconds (almost half a minute!), achieved by Takuo Toda (Japan).
Fastest time to fold and throw a paper aircraft. David Rush (USA) created and launched a paper plane in 6.15 seconds! How fast can you do it?
Most paper aircraft caught by mouth in one minute. Ashrita Furman (USA) caught 17 paper planes in his mouth in 1 minute!

Your turn!

Are you a pro paper airplane pilot?

Now you can break a world record too!

Put your skills to the test by attempting a record that’s made just for you, people under 16 years old – the most times to hit a target with a paper aircraft in three minutes. 😎

Put simply, you’ll have to land as many paper planes as you can into a bucket!

Click here to apply and check out this video of Harry explaining the challenge in more detail: