The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : A light-weight look at aerodynamics

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Tuesday, Mar 03, 2009
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

A light-weight look at aerodynamics

Asem Bhat

Each participant was required to design his plane
‘Swallow plane’ wins entry for international finals

BANGALORE: All they needed was a piece of rectangular paper to give shape to their dreams. These young, budding paper plane pilots, who participated in the Red Bull Paper Wings world finals, set out with the sole aim to fly.

Three contestants from Mumbai and Bangalore have qualified for the World final of Red Bull Paper Wings to be played in Austria in May.

With distance, airtime and aerobatics as principle categories, 45 paper plane pilots battled it out for the honour of representing the country in this unique contest.

Karan Shah of Poddar College Mumbai qualified for the longest distance category by covering 29.2 metres area; Ryan Gibbs of St. Joseph’s College of Commerce, Bangalore, qualified for the longest airtime by managing to make the stay of his plane in air for 7.16 seconds and Bipin Chinnapa, student of CMR Institute of Management Studies, qualified for the “most interesting and funny stuff” title in aerobatic category by managing to make his light-weight aircraft make many an interesting manoeuvre.

Each participant was required to design his own paper airplane without any assistance and supplementary devices. However, the participants in the aerobics category were allowed to use scissors, glues and other materials to design their plane.

Bipin Chinnapa, who qualified for international finals in this category, said: “I chose to make the Swallow plane, it looks like a bird and is considered the most dynamic plane. It had ability to do two loops and land in a circle. And the spirit which made me to win was my presumption to judges about the behaviour of my plane,” he said.

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