Paper planes are among the simplest things anyone can make, but the world’s largest paper plane is anything but simple. Built exclusively out of sheets of paper and several liters of glue, this monstrosity is 7 meters long, has a wingspan of 20.04 meters, and weighs 28.49 kilograms (62.81 lbs.).
Despite its massive size and weight, to qualify for a valid Guinness World Record, the plane had to be launched by a single person and glide through the air for a minimum distance of 15 meters. That sounds easier than it is in practice, and the team behind the Icarus project spent months taking into account stability, strength, weight, and aerodynamics with exceptional precision.
A total of about 300 kilograms of paper and 60 kilograms of glue were used during the months of testing the team conducted in order to come up with a working design. They settled on a honeycomb-shaped model to increase strength without significantly increasing the weight, and on June 25, in the BolognaFiere Hall, a member of the team launched the plane for a record-setting flight of 59 m (193.6 ft).
The previous record had been standing since 2013, when a team from the Technical University of Braunschweig in Germany successfully launched a 5-meter-long, 24-kilogram-heavy paper plane with a wingspan of 18 meters for a flight of about 18 meters.
Interestingly, just a month before, a team of Chinese students set a new record for the world’s largest remote-controlled paper plane.
