Red Bull Paper Wings World Final 2019: Highlights video

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Red Bull Paper Wings World Final

Watch the final of Red Bull Paper Wings as participants combine genius designs with flying skills.

14 May 2022

The 2019 Red Bull Paper Wings World Finals saw 176 pilots from 58 countries compete across two days in Salzburg, Austria, finishing with the Super Finals in the city's glittering Hangar-7. The event was the culmination of 437 qualifiers and the efforts of more than 52,000 hopefuls worldwide.

Three titles were up for grabs – Longest Distance, Longest Airtime and Aerobatics. The pilots had to qualify for the Super Finals through a Pre-Elimination Round.

The Aerobatics final saw pilots launch their planes in a 60-second creative presentation. The winner was the sole woman to make it into the Super Finals in any category and the first woman ever to earn a Red Bull Paper Wings championship, Kateryna Ahafonova of the Ukraine. Her rhythmic gymnastics routine earned the only perfect 10 score of the night.

"I wanted to do this, because I thought it was a very good opportunity. I still can't believe I've won," a delighted Ahafonova said. "There are no words for how I'm feeling. I trained every day and maybe that's how I got this result, but I don't know. It's a dream come true."

A back and forth duel developed in the Longest Airtime final between Australia's Cameron Clark and Vince Scholl of Germany, ending with Clark winning the championship with a launch-to-landing time of 13.33s.

"This is unexpected. I didn’t expect to make it to the World Finals, let alone to win it," Clark said. "This is my first time not just in Austria, but in Europe, and it's fantastic. Hangar-7 is beautiful and it's amazing to compete with people from so many other countries."

The evening climaxed with pilots facing off in the Longest Distance final, which was measured to the millimetre on a 70m apron. The USA's Jake Hardy launched his plane 56.61m to overtake Serbia's Lazar Krstić for the win.

"Winning here is unbelievable. I just saw that there was going to be a qualifier at Long Beach State and thought I'd go to watch professional paper airplane throwers. The next thing you know, I was in the World Finals. There"s nothing else like this," the delighted Hardy commented.

The judges were B-Boy Wing, Red Bull Air Race pilot Mika Brageot and BASE jumping legend Cédric Dumont. "To me, Red Bull Paper Wings is kind of a mix of aerobatics, freestyle performance aerodynamics, all in a very fun environment," said Brageot. "It's quite interesting, because flying paper airplanes is something anyone can do, any time, at any age. I flew paper planes as a child and I'm still doing it."