KUWAIT: In front of hundreds of spectators and rival participants, Mohamed Abdelkarim and Mustafa Hasanclinched the win to head to the Red Bull Paper Wings World Final in Austria. Red Bull Paper Wings is the world's largest paper plane competition. The idea is simple and ingenious at the same time: students must make a plain sheet of paper fly as far, as long or as artistically through the air as possible.

Some of the world's best student pilots in Kuwait took on their rivals for the chance of winning a spot in the Red Bull Paper Wings World Final, taking place in May in Austria.

This year, tens of thousands of self-trained, student pilots, will put their outstanding creative skills, in 64 qualifiers across the global, to the test to enter the world's leading paper plane contest.

Kuwait's qualifier took place on April 13th at 360 Mall, impressing participants and spectators alike. To take part in the competition, students had to make a single piece of paper fly as far and as long as artistically possible through the air. The Kuwait winners of two categories - Longest Distance and Longest Airtime- have been invited to the World Final in Austria.

The judging criteria differs based on the category. The winner of the longest distance category is the plane that flies the longest distance between the lift-off and the landing point while the winner of the longest airtime is the plane that manages to stay in the air the longest, counted to the tenth of seconds.

Mustafa Hasan flew his paper plane for 9.22 seconds while Mohamed Abdelkarim achieved a distance of 19.3 meters. The Kuwait finalists will descend on Salzburg's Hangar-7 for the World Final. Each pilot will be armed with a single A4 sheet of paper, ready to impress fans and judges across the three distinct categories.

Global winners for Distance, Airtime, Aerobatics and Best ranked player of the AR game will get as a prize a Red Bull Air Race Weekend Experience consisting of flight tickets, accommodation, full pass to watch the training and race over the weekend, access to sky lounge depending on the race, tour and meet & greet with one of the pilots of Red Bull Air Race.