Paper Airplanes on the Brain

"Let's make an airplane, let's make an airplane, and go out to the field. / Get down, get down, and I'll fly up in the air." This very familiar Taiwanese children's song makes you think about making paper airplanes when you were young.

Many people know how to fold paper airplanes, but Chuo Chih-hsien from National Jhuolan Experimental Senior High School in Miaoli County can make over 5,000 different designs and has broken the world record. Chuo's enthusiasm for paper airplanes has led to invitations from Taiwan's primary and junior high schools to demonstrate and teach his skill to students. Of course, he has also attracted many media representatives to the remote hills of Chuolan in search of the source of his creativity.

With a balance between gravity and lift, the secret of a good flight is all in the toss.

Pigeons and paper airplanes

"People all stress the fact that I can make many different kinds of paper airplanes, but really the most important thing is they all can fly," says the medium-build, 40-year-old Chuo Chih-hsien. As he talks, he picks up a somewhat misshapen old plane, limp with moisture, that has flown for more than ten years, but when he tosses it, the plane flies effortlessly to the cupboard across from him. The current world distance record for paper airplanes is 37 meters, but Chuo's planes can fly 52 meters, and he is preparing to request inclusion in the Guinness Book of World Records. But Chuo points out that the distance record is not only a technical challenge, it's a challenge that includes mental attitude, wind speed, and wind direction.

Chuo's dream of flight has its origins in his childhood when he lived in Tachia, Taichung County. He would always be looking up in the sky to see fighter jets roaring overhead that had taken off from the Chingchuankang airbase. When he was in junior high school, his thoughts turned to raising pigeons and he would watch them fly around the sky all day long. It seemed anything that could fly attracted his interest.

When 16 years ago a neighbor's child asked Chuo to make a paper airplane, his dream of flight was called up from deep within, and from that moment on he was suddenly immersed in the world of the paper airplane. Although he majored in Chinese at the university level and had no courses at all dealing with aerospace or mechanics, when it came to aerodynamics he was on a par with any physics teacher.

But simple paper airplanes could not satisfy Chuo. He began to change the angle of the wings and shape of the fuselage, improving the planes' performance and stability. For example, he divided each wing into three equal parts and made a downward fold so that a triangular "air channel" was formed where the wings attached to the body. From here he went on to develop various designs of this "air channel plane" that extended and enlarged the channel, creating a plane with a delta-shaped wing similar to a hang glider.

But the delta-wing plane didn't bear much resemblance to a real aircraft because it lacked a vertical rudder. Chuo began to study model airplanes as well as aircraft yearbooks that included information on plane construction. Looking at models of an F-16, a Mirage 2000, and the ROC's home-grown IDF fighter, along with their "three-view drawings" (top, front and side), he thought long and hard about how to make his delta-wing airplane into a truly lifelike, three-dimensional fighter.

He labored for two years. Sometimes an inspiration would suddenly come to him in a dream. Focusing on a breakthrough idea, he would immediately leave the warmth of his blanket and get some paper. Then, as his thinking took clear shape, his mind would be racing with myriad possibilities.

"What's original with me is that after folding the wing into a very normal flat shape, I improved the structure by further folding the wings into triangle shapes that attached to the middle of the fuselage. Finally, there is the square fold of a stabilizer wing beneath the fuselage. That was the most difficult part. After I came up with these original folds, a great number of designs could be modeled on them," Chuo says with great confidence. Now when he sees any kind of plane he is able to fold it perfectly without fail.

Chuo's three original shapes: the underslung fuselage, inspired by the Harrier jump-jet; the triangular fuselage, developed from the F-16 fighter; and the square fuselage patterned after the F-4 and the MiG-21. (courtesy of Chuo Chih-hsien)

It's all in the toss

Although a paper airplane is just a folded toy, the principles that govern its aerodynamics are virtually the same as those of a real aircraft.

Chuo Chih-hsien explains that the flight principles of the paper airplane can be simplified to the mutual influence of gravity and lift. The weight of the paper airplane tends to pull the fuselage down, while the wings capture the air, allowing the plane to glide. Added to these two opposing forces is the momentum imparted by the thrower that helps propel the plane forward. The balanced interplay of these three forces yields a beautiful flight.

When Chuo visits middle and primary schools he is apt to explain these principles to the students, but he believes that trying to fly planes yourself is the best way to understand the mysteries of flight. "People who fly paper airplanes a lot," says Chuo, "know where the problem lies just by seeing where their plane comes down!"

Over the past 16 years Chuo Chih-hsien has created some 5,000 different paper airplane designs. His fame has spread to Europe, and this summer vacation he will travel to Germany to participate in a paper airplane exhibition in Munich.

Chuo's determination is quite touching. What ever is it that keeps him going?

"Once I made my breakthrough," he says, "my creative juices bubbled up like water from a spring. Now, one day's inspiration leads to the next day's inspiration. Every day I discover something new. This is a joy hard to describe."

In his high-school classroom, Chuo Chih-hsien is a Chinese teacher. In this remote mountainous area, most students at the school have their heads buried in their textbooks. In this environment, Chuo is only able to make use of time from guidance and group activities classes to teach students to make paper airplanes and relieve the pressure of their studies.

In the movie Hook, Peter Pan has returned to the world of people and become a dull, 9-to-5 working stiff who has long since forgotten how to fly. To save his son and daughter who have been taken captive by Captain Hook, he returns to the island of his childhood. Here, helped to remember by his companions, he finally finds the source of happiness and recovers his ability to fly. Chuo Chih-hsien wishes he could be forever young and innocent just like Peter Pan, and because his happiness also comes from dreams of flying, he wants to continue spreading this happiness far and wide.

nevertheless can still soar.