News from the Field: Is it a bird? A plane? A paper plane...?

Image Courtesy of PaulVivian

Just quickly (and quirky) this morning is a piece of news about the humble Paper Plane. Apparently, it's a bit more serious than most of us think.

After perhaps not paying a proper homage to the paper plane in this post last week, Matt dropped us an email to have a look at this video of the 2009 Paper Plane World Championships!

Image courtesy of Uberreview

Held in Austria, 253 paper plane 'pilots' from a staggering 83 countries came together to fold, fly and flaunt their best paper-aerodynamics.

Image Courtesy of Instructables

There were all sorts of categories, which you can read about at sponsor Red Bull's recap, but of particular importance we think, is news that Australia's own Dylan Parker (from Canberra) came third in the longest distance category - a not-quite transatlantic (but still impressive!) 40.78 metres.

Image Courtesy of 2dayblog

The most amazing part is that Dylan learned his craft whilst recovering in hospital from a brain tumour, making this story really quite inspirational.

And if you think you can out-do Dylan, try this how-to guide for folding the design of the winning plane - the Nakamura Lock!

Safe flying!