Camera captures a 45-foot paper airplane's graceful flight — and crash

Camera captures a 45-foot paper airplane&#039;s graceful flight &amp;mdash; and crash

(Image credit: YouTube/GoPro)

last updated 8 January 2015

You could argue that a paper airplane that you can't get airborne without help of a helicopter doesn't qualify for a world record, or that this video looks like a commercial for GoPro, the camera maker whose products are favored by drone hobbyists and crazy Russian roof scalers (it is, in fact, an ad for GoPro). Or you could just watch the graceful flight and rough landing of Arturo's Desert Eagle, Mark II. The original 800-pound paper-and-cardboard aircraft, measuring 45 feet by 26 feet, was flown above the same stretch of Arizona desert in 2012. --Peter Weber

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.