JEDDAH: College students in Saudi Arabia will join thousands of their counterparts in 58 countries in the preliminary finals of Red Bull Paper Wings 2009 contest being held today.
Each student will be required to design his own paper airplane and compete in the national qualifications, which will take place in each country to qualify for the global final of Red Bull Paper Wings scheduled in Austria on May 1-2, the organizers told the media yesterday.
The grand number of collegiate students, who have already submitted the participating orders either through direct registration or via the dedicated e-mail ([email protected]), will participate in the national preliminary finals taking place in Jeddah today while in Riyadh and Dhahran in March.
College students in the Western Province will have the chance to participate in the preliminary finals, which will start at 8 p.m. at Red Sea Mall in Jeddah today. Students in Riyadh and Dhahran will participate in the qualification that will take place at both Prince Sultan University and Faculty of Al Yamamah in Riyadh, and at the Dhahran Mall in Dhahran next month.
Three categories for May 2009 world championship are:
Longest distance: Winner of this category will be the plane (made out of just one sheet of paper) that flies the longest distance between the lift-off and the landing point within the official air space. The distance will be counted in m; cm; mm / feet. Official world record holder in this discipline is Stephen Krieger (USA, 2003) with 63.19 m/ 207 ft 4 inch.
Longest Airtime: Winner of this category will be the plane (made out of just one sheet of paper) that manages to stay in the air the longest. Results will be counted in tenth of seconds. Official World Record holder in this discipline is Ken Blackburn (USA, 1998) with 27,6 sec.
Acrobatics: Creativity and style — that is what it takes to make a paper plane fly artistically through the air. A jury will determine the winner according to following criteria: Construction of the paper plane, flight performance and creativity (plane, outfit, performance).
The first three winners from each province will qualify for the final qualifications of Saudi Arabia, which will take place in Jeddah in March. The winner in Jeddah will qualify for the global finals of Red Bull Paper Wings in Austria on May 1-2.
