Plans for paper planes take flight

70 students vie for aircraft honors, trip to Austria

SANTA CRUZ — The key to folding paper planes is precise, symmetrical creases.

The key to winning a paper plane contest is another story — especially when a trip to Austria is on the line.

More than 70 UC Santa Cruz students flew their designs in the “Red Bull Paper Wings” contest on campus Thursday.

The competition was one of hundreds of college tournaments worldwide that qualify winners for a trip to Salzburg, Austria, in May for the world finals. Three contests were held: longest distance, airtime and “aerobatics,” in which participants were judged on style.

In the corner of the West Field House basketball court, Nate Bussani, a junior, watched an instructional YouTube video on his iPhone, of world record holder John Collins folding his plane.

Bussani and his friend, Danny Lee, a sophomore, mimicked the model.

“This is how I’m gonna get my trip to Austria,” Bussani said. “It’s not about talent. It’s about brains.”

Others came equipped, such as engineering associate professor Gabriel Elkaim, who brought a ruler and instructions he found online. Though he wasn’t eligible to win, Elkaim spent nearly an hour testing and altering his planes.

To fix a swerving flight path, he blunted the nose. To make it glide farther, he pointed the tip and threw it as if he was throwing a javelin.

“The thing about aerodynamics, at a large scale it’s experimental,” Elkaim said. “At a small scale, it’s even more so.”

Michael Simpson, a sophomore, held the record for distance, 21.7 meters, for most of the contest, until Wayne Almendarez showed up in the last 10 minutes and threw a surprise winning 23.1-meter flight.

Simpson, a computer game design major, used a childhood design for the contest.

“It acts like a dart instead of a plane,” Simpson said. “It spins as it flies. It’s actually deadly.”

Naomi Farrell, a junior and psychology and community studies double major, attended the contest on a whim and ended up spending her whole afternoon on the basketball court, folding, refolding and testing ways to throw her planes. Trial. Error. Trial. Error. Finally, her plane came to life, soaring and circling like a hawk before alighting on the gym floor.

“I think when my head is clear and I’m not rushing it, it’s when it flies the best,” Farrell said.

Other winners included Jacob Abrahms, with an airtime of 7.1 seconds, and Odile Bouchard, for aerobatics.