- Two Boeing engineers made a paper airplane that flew almost the entire length of a football field.
- They set a Guinness World Record after their paper airplane flew 289 feet 9 inches.
Two Boeing engineers designed a paper airplane that flew almost the entire length of a football field, smashing the world record.
Aerospace and mechanical engineers Dillon Ruble and Garrett Jensen, with the help of Nathaniel Erickson, won the Guinness World Record for "the farthest flight by a paper aircraft" after making one that flew 88.31 metres, or 289 feet 9 inches — almost the entire length of a football field.
"It really put things on the map and it's a really proud moment for family and friends," Ruble said in a press release.
"It's a good tie-in to aerospace and thinking along the lines of designing and creating prototypes."
The Boeing workers, who studied aerospace and mechanical engineering together at Missouri University of Science and Technology, said their design was inspired by hypersonic aerospace vehicles.
The engineers also studied origami and aerodynamics while designing their plane, and they spent 400 to 500 hours building and testing prototypes.
"For the Guinness World Records, we ended up going with A4-sized paper and went up to the maximum for weight, 100 grams per square meter," Jensen said. "The heavier the paper, the greater the momentum when you go to throw it."
They put their final design to the test on December 2, 2022, in Crown Point, Indiana, and broke the world record on the third throw.
—The Boeing Company (@Boeing) February 22, 2023
"Our design is a little different from your traditional fold in half, fold the two corners to the middle line down the middle. It's pretty unique in that aspect. It's definitely an unusual design," Ruble said.
"We found the optimal angle is about 40 degrees off the ground. Once you're aiming that high, you throw as hard as possible. That gives us our best distance," Jensen added.
The previous record for the farthest flight by a paper airplane was 252 feet 7 inches (77 meters) achieved by a trio from Malaysia and South Korea in April 2022.