Red Bull Paper Wings Qualiflyer – University of Birmingham

On 22nd of March the University of Birmingham played host to the qualiflyer for Red Bull Paper Wings. The Munrow Sports Hall was packed with paper planes of all kinds with DJ Hamnett playing a great set to give a wicked atmosphere to pump the competitive edge amongst the 50 Pilots looking to secure their place in the World Finals in Salzburg, Austria in May.

The first throw of the day from Husain Anan went far and for long as he headed both the rankings for distance and airtime for some time with 21.30m and 5.53s respectively before eventually being out done. The eventual winner of the distance category was our very own DJ Will Clegg with one of the last throws of the day, sending his Paper Plane an impressive 31.20m.

Word had spread amongst the engineering clusters, which brought a new dimension to the craft being shown in the plane designs.  Some fine aerobatics were on show with our resident judges scrutinising the performances to ensure there was no easy path to Austria. The judges’ favourite was a spectacular performance from Aris Kapsanakis which saw a full ‘loop the loop’ followed by a series of turns, given sevens across the board by our judges. 21 was enough to take the best score of the day.

Aris’ aerobatic entry also clocked a time of 6.90s in the airtime category, which had surpassed all those before him and those seen on the previous qualifiers to put him top of the UK rankings. However no-one could expect what was about to happen when Nick Remwick (who had been leading prior to Aris with 6.08s) stepped up to the plate and launched his Paper Plane which stayed in the air for what seemed like an eternity, and clocked a stoking 9.33 seconds to smash the standard set around the UK in previous qualifiers, and firmly place him UK number one – for now at least.

There were Paper Planes everywhere by the end of the day, hundreds of planes being thrown for tester after tester lead to the action being great all day. All the pilots involved thoroughly enjoyed themselves and strived to improve to become the best, beating the standard set by others. With only 2 more qualiflyers left, the leading pilots are one step closer to finding out if they have done enough to make it all the way to Salzburg for the World Finals in May.