Watch it in action
At 20.04 meters across, the record-breaking paper aircraft looks almost surreal: a giant white wing, a slim body, and a size that turns a familiar school desk object into a full-scale flight challenge.
When paper becomes aerospace
Progetto Icarus and Jakidale built the largest paper aircraft on record in Bologna, Italy, on 25 June 2026. The finished plane was made entirely from paper and glue, stretched 7 meters long, and weighed about 28.5 kilograms.
The challenge was not folding — it was stability
Scaling up a paper plane means every small weakness gets amplified. The team had to solve:
- weight — keeping the structure light enough to move;
- stiffness — stopping the wings from bending under their own span;
- balance — making sure the giant craft could fly straight instead of tipping or stalling.
A child’s object, built like a prototype
That is the visual shock of the project: something that looks like a classroom fold, but behaves like a serious aerodynamics test. The result was a Guinness World Records title for the largest paper aircraft, with a wingspan of 20.04 meters.
One impossible-looking flight, one oversized sheet of paper, and a record that makes folding paper feel suddenly industrial.
