Toda - OUT OF THIS WORLD PAPER AIRPLANES KIT: 48 paper airplanes in 12 designs from japans leading ... designer - 48 fold-up planes

Published by Tuttle Publishing, an imprint of Periplus Editions (HK) Ltd.

www.tuttlepublishing.com

Copyright 2018 Takuo Toda and Andrew Dewar

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission from the publisher.

Photo & Illustration Credits
Takuo Toda: 46, 811, 1415, 1718, 19 (top), 2023, 31 (bottom), box bottom author photo.
Andrew Dewar: 13, 1213, 16 (bottom), 2526, 2830, 31 (top), 3234, 3638, 40, 42, 44, 46, 48, 50, 5253, 56, 5960, box and booklet cover paper airplane photos.
All other photos as attributed. Diagrams by Andrew Dewar. Color illustrations and folding paper designs by Konstantin Vints.

ISBN 978-0-8048-4637-0; ISBN 978-1-4629-2034-1 (ebook)

Distributed by

North America, Latin
America & Europe
Tuttle Publishing
364 Innovation Drive
North Clarendon, VT 05759-9436 U.S.A.
Tel: (802) 773-8930
Fax: (802) 773-6993
www.tuttlepublishing.com

Japan
Tuttle Publishing
Yaekari Building, 3rd Floor, 5-4-12 Osaki
Shinagawa-ku
Tokyo 141 0032
Tel: (81) 3 5437-0171
Fax: (81) 3 5437-0755
www.tuttle.co.jp

Asia Pacific
Berkeley Books Pte. Ltd.
61 Tai Seng Avenue #02-12 Singapore 534167
Tel: (65) 6280-1330
Fax: (65) 6280-6290
www.periplus.com

First edition
22 21 20 19 18
6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in China
1801CM

TUTTLE PUBLISHING is a registered trademark of Tuttle Publishing, a division of Periplus Editions (HK) Ltd.

ABOUT TUTTLE
Books to Span the East and West

Our core mission at Tuttle Publishing is to create books which bring people together one page at a time. Tuttle was founded in 1832 in the small New England town of Rutland, Vermont (USA). Our fundamental values remain as strong today as they were thento publish best-in-class books informing the English-speaking world about the countries and peoples of Asia. The world has become a smaller place today and Asias economic, cultural and political influence has expanded, yet the need for meaningful dialogue and information about this diverse region has never been greater. Since 1948, Tuttle has been a leader in publishing books on the cultures, arts, cuisines, languages and literatures of Asia. Our authors and photographers have won numerous awards and Tuttle has published thousands of books on subjects ranging from martial arts to paper crafts. We welcome you to explore the wealth of information available on Asia at www.tuttlepublishing.com.

The Sky Is the Limit!

One of my paper airplanes mounted on a boom suspended below a weather balloon at the edge of space. See for the full story.

I have been folding and flying paper airplanes seriously for over forty years. Along the way, I discovered that there are many things you can do with origami, but paper planes are different from ornaments or representational models. The paper material is the same, and its just your fingers folding the paper into various shapes, but once you launch the origami airplane into the air, you realize how much more there is to it than just folded paper. The sky is literally the limit!

I started out folding origami airplanes from diagrams in a book, but I soon began to feel I wanted to go beyond ready-made designs and started creating my own originals. Then, when that started getting easier, I began to fold a three-dimensional space shuttle, which no one had ever done before. It took a while, but the space shuttle paper airplanes are now my trademark.

The space shuttles looked like they belonged in space. So I went to the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and they passed my designs on to NASA, who agreed to fly them back to earth from orbit.

My planes began to fly better than most other published designs. How much better? I took them to a stadium and broke the world record for time aloft. Twice!

My adventure all started with reading a paper airplane book. Now you have this book in your hands and its your turn. Fold them all! Then create your own!

Did I say the sky is the limit? Thats not quite right. Because it turns out that for paper airplanes, there is no limit at all!

Takuo Toda

Posing alongside a huge example of my trademark design.

My Friend Takuo Toda

I have known Takuo Toda for about twenty years, since shortly after he published his first book in Japan. We have collaborated on several books since then. I started out with cut-and-paste paper gliders, a completely different type of paper airplane, but over the years I have absorbed a lot of origami knowledge from him, which has made it possible for me create my own origami airplanes.

Takuos designs are quintessentially Japanese. What exactly makes Japanese origami airplanes different? This is something I often get asked. Certainly origami planes and paper gliders are much more popular in Japan than perhaps anywhere else. I would say that Japanese origami airplanes tend to be softer-looking, gentler, and more suited to flying in small spaces than Western darts. They often have that distinctive belly button on the bottom (see The Zero Fighter, ). The space shuttle designs with 3-D fuselages are unique to Japan. There are lots of whimsical planes, and there are planes that can fly for amazing lengths of time. Takuos designs are completely representative of Japanese origami airplanes, but thats not an accidenthe is the most imitated designer in Japan!

I have always thought it unfortunate that, despite Takuos world records, and despite the fame he won for his hypersonic wind tunnel experiment, his designs are almost completely unknown outside Japan. They are imaginative, daring, polished, and amazingly high-performance, and they have had a huge influence in Japan. Now its time they took flight all around the world!

We have collected some of his best planes for this kit. The current world record holder and three of Takuos trademark space shuttle designs are here. But so are many very simple planes, and a few whimsical ones.

It is my pleasure to introduce Takuo and the many amazing things he has done.

Can You Top This?

BY TAKUO TODA

I have held the Guinness World Record for time aloft since 2009. It was a long time coming, and I am very proud of it, but I would love to have it soundly broken by some younger person. It is close to 30 seconds, but no one seems to be able to break that barrier.

The Guinness time aloft record was first set in 1975 by William Pryor with a time of 15.0 seconds, and since then it has been broken by several peopleKen Blackburn (four times), Chris Edge, Andy Currey, and me (twice). My latest time is almost twice the first record, and it is getting close to the practical limit.

There are several challenges that need to be overcome if you want to break a record. You must have a good paper airplane. It has to glide very well, but also climb vertically towards the ceiling when thrown hardmost planes just loop. Then, you need a very large indoor space. School gymnasiums are far too smallthe planes crash into the walls and ceiling. You need ideal weather; cold and dry. Hot air is less dense and gives less lift, and damp air warps the plane. And perhaps most of all, you need a good throwing form.