Making and throwing paper airplanes is fun, but did you ever think that playing around with paper airplanes could result in setting a new world record?
Former quarterback Joe Ayoob threw 280 passes during his two seasons California during 2005 and 2006. However, his best throw did not result from his football career.
Ayoob set the record the longest paper airplane flight in a hangar at McClellan Air Force Base outside Sacramento, California according to Usatoday.com.
The new Guinness World Record was made after the paper airplane was thrown 226 feet, 10 inches. He beat the previous record by almost 20 feet.
It wasn’t Ayoob’s idea to try to break the record, John Collins, a television producer in San Francisco, set out to break the record but needed the help of a quarterback. Ayoob was not his first pick, but after he could not get in touch with his first two choices he enlisted Ayoob; it seems the right man was chosen.
Ayoob and Collins had to prepare for over a year to break the previous world record which fell this weekend.
“I grew up making paper airplanes,” Ayoob said to ESPN “I used to make paper airplanes and throw them all the way home from school when I was little. So it was kind of up my alley. I thought it was a cool idea.
“Some people might think, ‘What’s the big deal? It’s just a paper airplane.’ But it’s a world record. It took a lot of time for John, and it took a lot of time for me working with John to achieve this. … It’s very rewarding, and I’m very proud of this record.”
According to Ayoob there are a lot of similarities when it comes to throwing a paper airplane and a football.
“A lot of people could throw this plane and get some pretty crazy distance out of it,” Ayoob said. “But in order to achieve the distances we were trying to reach, it took a pretty precise throw, and it took a lot of strength. … There’s a lot of finesse involved, so it’s kind of blending power, balance and control while you’re throwing this fragile, little paper airplane.”
