Red Bull Paper Wings: Not even the sky’s the limit
Red Bull Paper Wings finalist stops at nothing and breaks the world record for paper plane flight distance.
Since 2006, Red Bull has called upon people around the world to deliver greatness in its simplest form; to align creativity, physicality, and technical genius. The task is this: craft a plane that will go the distance, or hang around in the air, out of a standard, single sheet of crisp A4 paper. No tearing, cutting, stapling, gluing, or any other modifications are permitted.
This is Red Bull Paper Wings, the official worldwide paper plane competition.
Dillon Ruble of St. Charles, Missouri, accepted Red Bull’s Paper Wings challenge. And then through hours and hours of dedication, the experience reaffirmed the aerospace engineering student’s mentality towards life. For Dillon, competition is a vehicle to transform your mindset and push your limits. So, he set a new limit with paper planes, a Guinness World Record to be exact. If you ask Dillon, he’ll tell you records are made to be broken—and he’s got proof.
“I haven’t touched paper airplanes for the last 10 years before this point. And then out of nowhere my main focus for the year was on designing and testing it, and setting up all the logistics, it’s pretty surreal,” the Red Bull Paper Wings’ world finalist explained.
Record Team Left to Right: Nathan Erickson, Dillon Ruble, Garrett Jensen
© Dillon Ruble
A fellow fraternity brother, Luke Mueller, at Missouri University of Science & Technology shared the Paper Wings competition details and Dillon was immediately interested.
“Because I'm, you know, pursuing aerospace engineering, in my final semester. I've done origami for like the past decade, just for fun, but I've learned some pretty good folding techniques. And then also playing baseball for over a decade that probably will translate to having a good throwing arm and being able to throw it far. So sort of a trifecta there,” he shared.
Yes, aerospace engineering, origami, baseball. You can’t make this up.
“And I thought, you know, hey, I should probably put some effort into this and see where it takes me,” he continued.
Dillon qualified in Missouri which advanced him to the National Final in Denver, Colorado where his design flew farther than all other competitors, 196.9 feet. It was off to Salzburg, Austria for the World Championship for Ruble.
But nearly as impressive, if not more, just the day prior to the Nationals, Dillon ran an ultra marathon; that’s 50 miles of insane elevation. Not only did he run it, he came in first. The next morning he woke up and flew to Denver to compete again. He refers to the two days as the “craziest experience of his life” and as for coming in first (again) at Nationals that was “the icing on the cake.”
His next stop: beautiful Austria to compete with the top paper flyers in the world.
Lazar Krstić of Serbia at the Red Bull Paper Wings World Finals 2022
© Philipp Carl Riedl / Red Bull Content Pool
All competitors at the iconic Salzburg’s Hangar-7 emerged on top out of a group of over 60,000 aspiring paper plane pilots from 60 different countries. “It was just really cool to meet everyone with super unique talents from all over the world. It was by far the most surreal moment in my life,” Dillon pointed out. Dillon was honored to compete against Lazar Krstić of Serbia who ended up grabbing first place in the distance category. Ruble came in 12th.
Even with the conclusion of the World Finals, he wasn’t done yet.
“Challenge what you think is the limit. Because the original design that I found, and started making different prototypes on, was one I thought was already pretty optimized. And it only got about 180 feet,” Dillon said.
“I felt like that was pretty close to the limit that I would be able to throw. And then within the span of about a month, I pushed that to 200 feet. And then after numerous more prototypes, we ultimately set the Guinness World Record at 289’ 9”. So I mean, that was a massive increase of what I felt was even possible.”
It’s classic human behavior to believe we can only go as far as we’ve witnessed others to go.
Red Bull Paper Wings
© Dillon Ruble
What’s on the other side in that untouched space of the unknown?
Possibilities.
Look at Roger Bannister, the first runner to crack a mile in under four minutes. The following month, another runner broke the record. Within three years, 15 more runners were running miles under four minutes. Roger decimated the mental barrier, he unlocked the door to the unknown.
“I think that was the coolest aspect of it all,” Dillon explained, “is that at one point I thought around 180, maybe 200 feet was about the limit that I could achieve, but we got all the way to 290 feet. So that just shows, it can be a mental block sometimes. Just to get over that hurdle of taking the next step forward.”
Dillon credits this mindset to his high school running coach, Coach Wright. He was a former Olympic coach who taught his athletes that by opening their minds they could go way beyond where they thought they could. “I've carried that forward pretty much through a lot of the things I've done the past few years of my life, and he's really been the spark of all that,” Dillon said.
Participants at Red Bull Paper Wings World Finals 2022 in Salzburg, Austria
© Philipp Carl Riedl / Red Bull Content Pool
What’s next for Ruble?
The first-generation college student hopes to be a third-generation Boeing employee after graduation. He’ll also be running a full Ironman in Chattanooga, Tennessee at the end of this year, and has applied to be on American Ninja Warrior which has been a lifelong goal.
“It's pretty funny how, like, you could go from a paper airplane to inspiring people. You know? It's kind of mind-blowing. But I'm really appreciative,” Dillon said.
However, greatness is not defined by one singular act but by perpetual effort and audacity. The beauty of greatness is its malleability. Greatness molds and shifts to those that have the courage to call on it, people like Dillon.
“It’s been pretty cool to branch out and try something new, as I always get to do with my mentality of diversifying my life, trying new things. I think it’s a really powerful way to live a hopefully fulfilling life,” the world record breaker declared.