Every paper airplane carries a tiny bit of optimism. You fold it. You throw it. For one glorious second, you believe you’ve conquered aerodynamics.
Then it hooks left and hits a lamp.
A team of engineering students at Italy’s University of Pisa recently approached the exercise with considerably more ambition. Their airplane, named Icarus, had a wingspan of 65.75 feet, stretched more than 23 feet from nose to tail and weighed roughly 63 pounds.
Oh, and it was made from paper and glue.
Back in June, Icarus successfully flew 59 meters, or about 194 feet, at a tech conference in Bologna, Italy. That was enough to earn the team the Guinness World Record for the largest paper aircraft, breaking a mark that had stood since 2013.
The funny part is that the project began with students tossing ordinary paper airplanes between university lectures. Then engineering happened. Scaling a classroom toy to roughly the width of a six-story building turns every little design decision into a much bigger problem.
The team used computer simulations, built prototypes and worked through questions of weight, stiffness, stability and aerodynamics. The final aircraft incorporated ribs, spars and honeycomb-like paper structures to stay rigid without becoming too heavy.
In this video watch Icarus take flight, complete with a team of students sprinting alongside it and shouting. Months of calculations, prototypes and problem-solving suddenly became several glorious seconds in the air—and a whole bunch of engineers absolutely losing their minds.
We can relate. There’s nothing quite like watching a wild engineering idea actually fly.
Here’s to big ideas, bigger engineering and sticking the landing.