Ken Blackburn, the world record-holder for longest paper airplane flight, will be in Juneau this month to share his passion with interested Juneauites.
Story last updated at 6/23/2010 - 6:22 pm
"What do you want to be when you grow up?" The standard first-grader answers to the question are things like "astronaut," "veterinarian" and "fireman." Most adults likely look back at their childhood replies to that question and chuckle. Things change for the majority of those first graders as they grow up and so far the world is not overflowing with astronauts, veterinarians and firemen.
Forty years ago in Kernersville, N.C., however, one first grader had a rather specific answer. Ken Blackburn knew from the time he was very little - before first grade, even - that he was interested in airplanes.
"As young as I can remember, I was interested in anything that could fly," he said.
Having grown up on a small farm, he "spent a lot of time outdoors and had plenty of space." The beaches of North Carolina, specifically the Wright Brothers National Memorial in Kill Devil Hills, were not far away either. An early trip to that memorial, and seeing that history first-hand, provided early inspiration to Blackburn. Paper airplanes became a passion.
So when Mrs. Sasser asked her first graders to go home, talk to their parents and come back the next day with an idea of what they wanted to do when they grew up, young Ken Blackburn did just that. He asked his parents, Paul and Lynne, what job he could do if he loved airplanes. They gave him the answer and he repeated it to Mrs. Sasser the next day: aeronautical engineer.
Blackburn further set himself apart from his classmates over time, because he stuck to his answer to Mrs. Sasser. Blackburn is now an aeronautical engineer and is still passionate about paper airplanes. In fact, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, Blackburn is more passionate about paper airplanes than anyone else on the planet. In 1998, after months of preparation, Blackburn successfully reset the world record for longest paper airplane flight - 27.6 seconds - in Atlanta's Georgia Dome. Blackburn said that as far as he knows the record still stands. The 2010 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records still lists that flight and Blackburn's name. The doubt stems from reports that a Japanese man (Takuo Toda San) broke Blackburn's record earlier this year with a time of 27.9 seconds. Whether or not that time winds up being acknowledged by Guinness remains to be seen.
Resetting that world record is not something Blackburn is unaccustomed to. The first time he became the best in the world, he was a junior at North Carolina State in 1983. His pals convinced him to go for it and after several weeks of preparing both the airplane designs and his physical condition, he set the first record of 16.89 seconds. Perhaps that would have been as far as it went, but Guinness called him in 1987 and asked him to try and reset the record on television. The young aeronautical engineer jumped at the chance to take a trip to Milwaukee and be on television. He prepared even more this time and was rewarded with a new record flight time of 17.2 seconds.
Blackburn would reset the record again in 1994 (18.8 seconds) although what he remembers best from that year was the flight time that Guinness did not accept.
"I couldn't believe it when I got their letter," he said.
Blackburn, on television and in front of numerous witnesses, tossed an airplane that stayed in flight for 20.88 seconds; the cameras, however, stayed on Blackburn after he made the throw and only got the last part of the airplane's flight. Record denied. Still, he held onto the world's top time until 1996. He took part in a paper airplane contest in London and won it. Two other participants from that contest, Chris Edge and Andy Currey, kept working afterwards and eventually succeeded in ousting Blackburn's time from the record books and setting the new world record of 20.9 seconds. Their time appeared in the 1998 edition of Guinness, setting the stage for Blackburn to give it one last shot.
No longer a young man, the 35-year-old prepared for nine months before the record-setting day in October at the Georgia Dome.
"Each time takes more and more practice," he said, adding that it also "gets tougher as you get older."
The Guinness World Record holder will return to Juneau this month to share his life-long passion. It won't be his first time to Alaska's capital; he went on an Alaskan cruise during that nine-month prep-period in 1998.
"I worked out on the ship," he said, "and did some practice throws at that big mall (5th Avenue Mall) in Anchorage." He got permission to do so, but admitted, "I have no idea what all those people thought I was up to as they watched me."
This month he will take part in the Flight Quest Camps, a summer day camp at Thunder Mountain High School for students going into eighth or ninth grades. The camp will be held June 28 through July 2 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day. The overall cost for the five-day camp is $150 per student. Blackburn will also host "Flight Night" at 7 p.m. on June 29 at the Dimond Park Field House. It will be an evening of paper-airplane designing, folding and, of course, flying.
Besides sharing his passion and knowledge, Blackburn said he hopes to "spark a little imagination and curiosity about airplanes." He also wants kids to realize, "It does not matter what your passion is, you can be as good as you want to be."
As for that potential new world record from Japan that would wipe Blackburn's name from the Guinness World Record Book - would he try to take it back? In 1998, he trained for nine months, even doing 100 sit-ups a night on the advice of trainer Dorri Buckholtz, who has worked with Pete Sampras, among others.
"I hated doing those," he said. He is also 12 years older and dealing with a bulging disk in his neck. Still, he has been "toying with different designs and techniques." When pressed for an answer on whether he would gun for the record one more time he thought about it for a moment. "I may," he said.
For more information about Blackburn's camp and Flight Night in Juneau, contact the Juneau Economic Development Council at 523-2342 or visit http://jedc.org.
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