We've all made a paper airplane, usually we have two choices.  The long jet, or the short stunt plane.  Neither flies all that great.  What if you could combine the two for a snub nosed paper airplane that actually flies GREAT!

(Aside from the instructional video below - the Sky King Instructional Diagram of at right is larger file, right click and save if you want larger printable image)

That's just what Takuo Toda of Japan did April 11th 2009.  His origami paper airplane design combines the best of various designs into a super airplane known as the Sky King. His invention was recognized in 2009 by Time Magazine as one of the year's top 50 inventions.  Toda  knows a lot about inventing a great paper airplane, after all he's chairman of the Japan Origami Airplane Association. "Since I was about 4 years old, I’ve been able to make really good paper planes and commit the steps to memory."  His ambition has resulted in the Sky King (a.k.a. the Toda Fold), a paper airplane which in April 2009 was flown for a record 27.9 seconds at a competition in Hiroshima. "I'd been trying to break the record for 11 years," said Toda, 52. "I finally got it." It's not Toda's only plane design, he has over 700 in his resume.  He's even got various paper airplane instructional books published.   He hopes one day to reach a flight time of 35 seconds which he has accomplished in practice.

Anyone that has ever tossed a hand glider paper airplane has hoped for longer flight time.  People have tossed paper airplanes off the anything they could climb.  As a kid who hasn't stood on a balcony or roof of their house and tossed a plane? Adults have thrown them off tall buildings.  There is an unconfirmed story in paper airplane circles that in the U.S. a paper airplane was thrown off a mountain.  The person drove drove a half an hour downhill to a lower parking lot and the paper airplane landed at the same time he arrived.  

Takuo Toda's greater goal is to drop an airplane from orbit in space and NASA has approved it.  Still, Toda has some stiff competition in that area as Andy Chipling, president of the Paper Aircraft Association has already dropped a paper airplane from 7,000 feet which was performed from a hot air balloon high over Kenya in Africa.  He and the balloon operator were already at 5,000 feet above sea level so in reality they were 2,000 feet up.  Perhaps his toss from a para glider may have been more monumental.  What makes it special is those planes have survived the drop.  No one knows if a the planes dropped from the International Space Station will survive even though they'll be treated with a special glass coating to protect them in re-entering Earth's atmosphere.

Like the paper airplane you made as a kid, the Sky King is made of a single sheet of paper, which can be a your basic oblong notebook sheet or copy sheet (8.5 x 11).    You won't need any tape or glue either.



Fly it inside and you'll think, nice.  But since you won't have a flight-hanger to toss yours in, you may not get the same results as Mr Toda.  You may even think the Sky King is not much different than other paper airplanes.  Take it outside and it will really impress you.  You'll get long flight time results.   Here is a video of how to make the Sky King courtesy of Wired...   more »