College students around the world are putting their aerodynamic prowess to work in their attempts to become the world’s top paper airplane creator through Red Bull’s international Paper Wings competition.
Tens of thousands of competitors from Singapore to Sydney to Los Angeles and many other cities are joining in the challenge, which judges paper airplanes according to three categories: distance flown, time spent airborne and aerobatic performance. Several qualifying events have already taken place, with the longest airtime to date achieved by Karol Gut from Poland, whose creation remained aloft for 14.22 seconds, and the longest distance attained by Canadian Addison Asuchak, whose paper bird flew 189 feet. With more than 100 qualifying competitions still slated to take place over the next few weeks, the preliminary rounds are far from over.
A total of 2,000 participants across America are vying to represent the U.S. at the Paper Wings World Finals in Salzburg, Austria. Within the next two days alone schools including the University of Virginia, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and Texas A&M, among others, are holding their qualifying events.
All airplanes must be constructed using standard-size commercial sheets of paper, and no ripping, cutting, gluing or stapling is allowed. Check out Red Bull’s site for videos of the competition here.
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