Three young pilots conquered the skies at the Red Bull Paper Wings Philippine Qualifiers held from Mar. 6 to Apr. 7, 2015 at three of the country’s top universities. Come May 9, Neiman Sevilla and Bryan Jonas Sayas of De La Salle University, and John Panis of the University of the Philippines will set their sights on the iconic Hangar-7 in Salzburg, Austria for the Paper Wings World Finals.
Paper Wings, the world’s biggest paper plane competition, features three categories: longest airtime, longest distance, and best in aerobatics.
Neiman Sevilla - Longest Airtime Champion
At the local qualifiers, Sevilla dominated the first with an airtime of 7.62 seconds. “The logic was to have a wide wing span so that it would really carry the plane in the air, and have a nicely folded plane to have less resistance to the air – to let it flow, basically.”
John Panis - Longest Distance Champion
Panis flew an impressive 18.62 meters with his A4-sized aircraft.
Bryan Sayas - Best in Acrobatics Champion
Sayas, the last to qualify, garnered more than 500 online votes for his paper plane’s loop-and-dive display. For Sayas, a “fun childhood” served as inspiration for his winning design. “When I was about 6 or 7 years old, my friends and I would go to a plaza just to fly paper airplanes. We used to do this paper plane we called “bat-plane” because the tip of the plane looks like a bat’s head.”
Defending champion Elie Chemaly of Lebanon will have his airtime record of 10.68 seconds challenged by this newest batch of amateur pilots from 80 countries – including three of our own.
Visit Red Bull Paper Wings’ website to find out how Sevilla, Panis, and Sayas navigate the challenges at this year’s Paper Wings World Finals.
