
Designing, folding, and flying the finest paper airplanes [video] - farnsworthy
https://www.wired.com/video/how-this-guy-folds-and-flies-world-record-paper-airplanes/
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lisper
Some historically interesting links along the same lines:

[https://lifehacker.com/181548/build-the-worlds-best-paper-
ai...](https://lifehacker.com/181548/build-the-worlds-best-paper-airplane)

The first comment is particularly interesting. I have a very clear
recollection of seeing the followup to the 60 Minutes episode he talks about.
Back then, they would read snippets of letters they received from viewers at
the end of the show. After the paper airplane episode (which I did not see,
but wish I could find a video of) someone wrote, "You dummies! Show us how to
fold the damn thing!" Which they then proceeded to do. Very, very quickly.
Following the procedure in real time was hopeless, and this was back in the
days when VCRs were still exotic new technology. We did not have one. But the
memory of hearing Harry Reasoner (I'm pretty sure it was him) reading that
snippet has stuck in my brain all these years.

If anyone can lay their hands on a copy of either one of these episodes that
would be really awesome.

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agumonkey
parts of my brain lit up just remember the feeling of paper again my fingers
while folding creases in primary school.

it's super cool to see his semi physical approach between momentum/lift etc.
Makes me wonder how much you could get by adding a few bits of metal/rubber in
the design (even minuscule but functional bits)

Also youtube has a lot of paper plane competitions in Japan. Fun to watch,
less explanations(npi) but some involved fluid dynamics ground effect.

~~~
2muchcoffeeman
I am sure most kids figured this out.

I used to add a small paper clip to the nose of my planes. I also used to have
these cheap styrofoam planes where you punched the parts out of a sheet and
slotted them together. Those had plastic push on noses.

I never thought much about my designs but thinking back the behaviour makes so
much sense now.

~~~
agumonkey
We used to weigh the nose up too, but without thinking about center of gravity
and oscillation. We were 6yo it wasn't very clear what was going on for us
even though I find it interesting that:

\- we could iterate hundreds of time with joy \- it seems like a stupid kid
thing but it's quite subtle and technical, if approached so

Kids have this pseudo researcher mindset that only lacks a few symbolic
notions to really leap across toying to understanding.

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farnsworthy
"After going about as far as I could go folding planes, I decided I need to
study this other field, this art called 'Origami.' So I worked on that for
about ten years..."

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socialist_coder
Very cool video. Awesome how he took the world record with a "real" plane
instead of just a dart.

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deckar01
Anyone have an alternate source? This Wired video player crashes Chrome on my
iPhone.

~~~
deckar01
YouTube: [https://youtu.be/Z5msJXVv918](https://youtu.be/Z5msJXVv918)

~~~
vanderZwan
And these are the Wired videos from last week, which presumably are embedded
in the site of the submission (which is also broken for me)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BNg4fDJC8A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BNg4fDJC8A)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhYZy1ugI3Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhYZy1ugI3Q)

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wheresmyusern
i appreciate the effort to make video content accepted here on hn, but this is
not video content that i think should be on the front page. this is flat out
not very intellectually interesting.

