back to article Japanese chap sets paper plane flight record

A Japanese aeronautical origami engineer has set the world record for the longest flight by a paper-only plane - 26.1 seconds. Takuo Toda, president of the Japan Origami Airplane Association, made his attempt on Saturday in a Japan Airlines hangar near Tokyo's Haneda airport, the Guardian explains. Toda already held the …

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  1. Josco

    Excellent

    Toda has now set his sights on the 30-second record, which he says is "just a matter of time".

    Priceless.

  2. Tom 7

    Dont let homeland security hear about this

    NT

  3. Adam T

    Impressive

    That's one hell of a launch throw...

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BNXfvbV-uY

  4. Winkypop Silver badge
    Coat

    Is that all?

    I once threw a paper plane off the top of the school, it went for at least that long...

    What? there are rules?

    Oh..

  5. robin penny
    FAIL

    This record was beaten in the 1930s

    My Father beat this record in the 1930s during his school lunch hour. I think the plane must have caught a thermal and was still flying when lessons resumed at the end of the lunch hour. I reckon I did better than this too when I was a child, using the same design as my Father (hmm, it's the desigh where you tear off the end of the sheet for the tail, so perhaps that doesn't count as a single sheet?).

  6. GrahamT
    Coat

    Really?

    The paper plane man

    says thirty seconds is just

    a matter of time.

  7. Alan_Peery

    26 seconds - pah!

    It doesn't seem like much of a record to me. It's been 30 years, but my friends and I timed one of our paper airplane flights to something like 144 seconds before another eddy of the wind took it over the neighbor's roofline and out of sight. I remember us deciding that we'd count the time when we lost sight of it and stopped the stopwatch, even though we were *certain* that the plane couldn'd get to the ground for at least another 5 seconds...

    What did the Guiness World say? "Teenagers, unwitnessed. Discount".

    1. Antidisestablishmentarianist

      The point is,

      is that the record is performed in a controlled environment - no 'cheating' via thermals etc allowed.

    2. Sorry that handle is already taken. Silver badge

      Really?

      If they didn't in fact say "..." or "piss off", they would instead have said "uncontrolled conditions".

  8. Nahmani
    Thumb Up

    Video

    is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwaS7gkgaKM

    1. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      Thanks for the vid

      However, the plane was out of shot for 8 seconds, was it resting on a roof strut?

  9. ted frater

    Eiffel tower launch

    Many yrs ago i launched a paper plane off the top of the Eiffel tower.

    It was possible to watch it for at least 10 mins as it was gliding about in the air, subject to various up and down currents. I lost sight of it when my attention was distracted and couldnt find it again.

    after all a paper plane without any means of propulsion is just a glider.

    Anyone that has flown hang gliders will confirm that unless your rising air rate is greater than your sink rate you will inevitably keep going downwards till you hit something.

    so it could be that the jap chap chose the time when perhaps the floor was warmer thanthe air in the hangar and thus had some rising air to support his paper plane.

  10. Paul 4
    FAIL

    Inside

    Yes, you can go further outside, but it is an indoor record because outside it is all about the wind.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Go

    Nice record.

    But Ryanair have been on the phone, apparently he used the loo?

  12. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Um Ken Blackburn anyone?

    Ken Blackburn has the current world record of 27.6 seconds

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