Is making paper airplanes really a sport? We at kidzworld think so.
An engineer from Hiroshima, Japan recently broke the Guinness World Record for the longest ever flight by a paper airplane. Takuo Toda’s specially designed paper aircraft stayed in the air for an incredible 27.9 seconds.
"I had thought that the world record was impossible to break, but the key to breaking the record is how high you fly it," Mr Toda told The Daily Telegraph.
Although he is an engineer, the paper plane that Toda designed was made from a simple sheet of folded paper with no cuts. In fact, the plane was just 10 cm long.
You would think the world record would be enough, however Toda, who is the chairman of the Japan Origami Airplane Association, says it is his dream to launch a paper airplane from outer space.
"Thirty years ago, I saw a space shuttle - with a similar shape to a paper airplane - returning to Earth," says Toda. “I thought it would be possible for a paper aircraft to do the same thing, but back then no-one would listen seriously to my ideas.”
Now people are taking his paper airplane ideas very seriously. In fact, making paper airplanes is turning into a huge business. Toda was given more than $1 million recently to find out if it is possible for a paper dart (similar to a paper airplane) to be launched from the International Space Station and have it re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere without being damaged.
"If it is proven that a paper plane can re-enter the Earth's atmosphere and glide back down safely then the scientific community could gain very valuable data about aerodynamics," Mr Toda says. "That knowledge could even lead to improvements in the design of spacecraft in the future as it would prove that even ultra-light materials are able to withstand the demands of the upper atmosphere."
So the next time you get in trouble from your teacher for making and launching a paper airplane in class, just tell teach you are doing important scientific research!
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