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Until now, the paper was only part of the battle. Ken Blackburn, who set a Guinness mark for time aloft in 1998, says he prepared for that attempt with a personal trainer, strengthening his shoulder and arm in daily workouts for nearly a year. He says he believes that “the record mainly belongs to the thrower.”
But a man who helped write the Guinness rules, Andy Chipling, thinks surrogate throwers are a good precedent. True paper-plane geeks will be able to see their engineering bolstered by brute strength, says Mr. Chipling, a U.K.-based expert in what he calls “paper aircraft.”
“It encourages technological innovation,” Mr. Chipling says, although he allows that the use of proxy tossers may make record-breaking throws unrealistic for “normal people.”
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