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:
