THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, December 16, 1995 TAG: 9512150051
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Larry Maddry
LENGTH: Medium: 92 lines
KEN BLACKBURN FLIES with the write stuff.
He is the holder of the Guinness Book of World Records title for having flown a paper airplane longer than anyone else - 18.80 seconds. He is also the co-author of the best-selling ``The World Record Paper Airplane Book.''
And what's the best paper for making a paper airplane?
``For the average aviator I recommend a normal sheet of writing or typing paper,'' Blackburn said, during a phone interview.
That's the kind of language that has endeared him to The Man Will Never Fly Society. Blackburn will speak tonight to The Man Will Never Fly Society tonight at its annual meeting in Nags Head.
The drinking society's motto is: ``Birds Fly, Men Drink'' The society meets each year on the eve of the anniversary of the Wright brothers' flight at Kitty Hawk to lampoon aviation. The MWNF society stubbornly refuses to believe in powered flight and contends airplanes are nothing but Greyhound buses with wings.
Ed North, the society's founder, has described Blackburn as an aviation genius. ``Someday Blackburn will make an airplane that will fly from coast to coast,'' North predicted.
``And when the flight is over he can make a paper cup of the plane and drink to his own success; he's our kind of guy.''
Blackburn, 32 is an engineer in aerodynamics for McDonnell Douglas in St. Louis but grew up in Kernersville, N.C.
``When I was about 8 years old, I made one of my frequent trips to the aviation section of the library in Kernersville, which included instructions for a simple square paper airplane.
``I found that it flew better than the paper darts I was used to.''
He was hooked.
When he was a junior in high school he attempted to enter the ``Guinness Book of World Records'' after reading in the book that the world record for time aloft was 15 seconds.
He took several planes to the baseball diamond at the school. With his teachers as timers, he hurled a square plane into the wind that made a flight of 24.9 seconds.
``But Guinness sent me a letter which said that the flight had to be performed indoors.''
He abandoned the world record quest for a couple of years. After enrolling at North Carolina State, he managed to sail one of his paper airplanes onto the field from atop the college football stadium during a game. ``About half the crowd applauded,'' he recalled.
His first world record came in 1983. Before establishing it, he had been tossing paper airplanes from the sixth floor window of his dormitory room at N.C. State, using a variety of paper products, ranging from pizza boxes to computer cards, to make his bizarre planes.
He set the record in Reynolds Coliseum at N.C. State even though he lost his best paper plane - nicknamed ``Old Bossy'' - when it sailed up toward a set of overhead public address speakers and stuck there. His second toss with the substitute plane set a record of 16.89 seconds.
He has held the time aloft record for the past 13 years. He established the current record at American Airlines Hangar 10 at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York, in 1994. The flight of 18.8 seconds almost ended in disaster when the paper-folded, 5-inch plane narrowly missed the tail of a DC-10, he said.
Surprisingly, a major part of breaking world records is athletic ability.
To stay aloft for more than 15 seconds, a plane must be hurled from the hand at a speed of about 60 miles an hour, Blackburn said.
Blackburn begins his toss in a crouch. ``Then I spring upward rotating and use a baseball throw,'' he said.
``When I know I'll be making a record attempt I begin working out with weights,'' he said. Blackburn said he recently went to a health club and explained the reason he needed a training program. ``I got a real funny look from the trainer,'' he said.
When he isn't establishing world records, he makes paper planes and flies them outdoors. ``I lose a lot of them because they get caught in trees,'' he said. ``And some are lost when the wind catches them and simply takes them out of sight.''
A colleague at McDonnell Douglas, Jeff Lammers, was Blackburn's collaborator for the book. It's a handsome, lushly illustrated book containing 100 full-color ready-to- fold airplanes, a primer on the principles of flight and instructions on how to make paper planes, including helicopters, a flying hoop (dubbed the Vortex) and a replica of the space shuttle. There's also a section on how to perform loops, dives and other stunts, natch.
``We also have a fold-out runway that's very realistic which can be used as a target,'' he said. MEMO: The World Record Airplane Book is published by Workman Publishing, New
York. $14.95.
ILLUSTRATION: [Book Jacket]
by CNB