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Big dream escapes paper jet thrower
Source: Agencies |
December 28, 2009, Monday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
IN the world of competitive paper airplane throwing, a 20-second flight is exceptional, 25 seconds or better is world class.
Thirty seconds is a dream.
Only one man - Japanese paper airplane virtuoso Takuo Toda - has ever come close to breaking the 30-second barrier. Yesterday in Tokyo, he set a world record for a hand-launched plane made with only paper, but fell just short of the 30-second mark.
Toda, flying a 10-centimeter-long craft of his own design, made 10 attempts to break his own record of 27.9 seconds set earlier this year in Hiroshima but failed to best his previous mark, settling for a 26.1-second flight.
That was still the best ever recorded for a paper-only craft. His 27.9 record was set with a plane with tape on it.
"I felt a lot of pressure," he said after his paper airplane fly-off at a Japan Airlines hangar near Tokyo's Haneda Airport. "Everything is a factor - the moisture in the air, the temperature, the crowd."
Toda, an engineer, is the head of the Japan Origami Airplane Association and is virtually unmatched in his ability to fold paper aircraft.
In keeping with rules of the ancient Japanese art of origami, he uses only one sheet of paper, which he does not cut or paste.
Thirty seconds is a dream.
Only one man - Japanese paper airplane virtuoso Takuo Toda - has ever come close to breaking the 30-second barrier. Yesterday in Tokyo, he set a world record for a hand-launched plane made with only paper, but fell just short of the 30-second mark.
Toda, flying a 10-centimeter-long craft of his own design, made 10 attempts to break his own record of 27.9 seconds set earlier this year in Hiroshima but failed to best his previous mark, settling for a 26.1-second flight.
That was still the best ever recorded for a paper-only craft. His 27.9 record was set with a plane with tape on it.
"I felt a lot of pressure," he said after his paper airplane fly-off at a Japan Airlines hangar near Tokyo's Haneda Airport. "Everything is a factor - the moisture in the air, the temperature, the crowd."
Toda, an engineer, is the head of the Japan Origami Airplane Association and is virtually unmatched in his ability to fold paper aircraft.
In keeping with rules of the ancient Japanese art of origami, he uses only one sheet of paper, which he does not cut or paste.
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