KUWAIT: Red Bull Paper Wings, the biggest paper plane competition in the world, takes off on Kuwait campuses this month. The event was created to celebrate students and their creativity. This year, 490 separate qualifiers will be spread over 62 participating countries. Red Bull Paper Wings 2022 will take place at two separate collegiate Kuwait locations on separate competition days, and combines the physical and mental skills of players, in the hopes of realizing Leonardo da Vinci's dream of flying. The event is open to all individuals over the age of 18 years. The first event was held on Wednesday, March 23, 2022, at Kuwait Technical College (KTech). Full event details can be found here.

Other qualifiers will be held throughout the coming weeks. Once at the in-person events at their campus of choice, participants will need to construct their winning paper plane on-premises, using the official Red Bull Paper Wings A4 paper. At home, practice flights should be on A4 paper with a weight of no more than 100 grams. Red Bull Paper Wings gives competitors the chance to compete in three distinct categories. These are: distance, airtime, and aerobatics.

The distance category is judged after two flight attempts are made, with only the best distance tallied to their final score. This category needs a strong throwing arm for the long runway built for the occasion.  The airtime category will require participants to build planes that resist gravity. Paper planes that remain off the ground the longest will win here.

The aerobatics category sees the competition move entirely online. This will be the first year that aerobatics will be a completely online event. Submissions will be viewed on the social media platform TikTok. To submit, students must upload their recorded aerobatics performance to TikTok, @RedBull, and include the relevant hashtags  #redbullpaperwings, and #kuwait.  The aerobatics category will be judged on the overall construction of the paper plane, but the main criteria for advancement to the World Final will be social engagement, performance creativity in the video, and flight performance.

The Kuwait winners will earn their tickets to compete at the World Finals, where all country winners will converge later this year. The Red Bull Paper Wings World Final takes place from May in Salzburg, Austria. It will be held at the famed Hangar-7 on May 13 and 14, 2022. For more information and FAQs, including the entire Red Bull Paper Wings ruleset, please note that they can be found on the Kuwait official website. To find out more about Red Bull Paper Wings and other major events of interest, follow @RedBullKuwait on Instagram and Twitter, and @RedBull on Facebook.