Flight Across the Sky.
A paper aeroplane, one sheet of paper, and the whole engineering design process in about two hours. Every Grade 5 class in Virginia Beach can enter — and the winners get to meet Aarron Deliu and the other pilots flying in the air show.
✈️ School winners in by 4:00 pm, Thursday 17 September 2026There are two challenges and you can enter one or both. One is about making it fly far. The other is about making it say something. They are genuinely different skills, and plenty of people are much better at one than the other.
Engineering flight
Design and build a paper aeroplane that travels the greatest distance possible — then prove you made it better, with your own measurements.
This is the real engineering design process: plan, build, test, improve. The testing is the part that counts. Anybody can fold a plane; an engineer folds one, measures it, changes one thing and measures again.
- Work in groups of 2–4
- One sheet of paper. That is it.
- Length between 15 and 28 cm
- Wingspan between 8 and 20 cm
- No tape, paper clips or staples
- No more than two redesigns
- Thrown by hand from behind the launch line
- Measured from the line to where it first touches the ground
Artistic flight
Build a plane that flies at least one metre — and decorate it so it communicates a message. Then be ready to explain what you were saying and how the design says it.
The air show theme this year is 250 Years. You could take that, or honour something in America's history, or your school, or a science idea that matters to you. It is your message.
- Alone, or in groups of 2–4
- Must fly at least 1 metre
- One sheet of paper
- Length 15–28 cm, wingspan 8–20 cm
- Big, bold letters if you write on it
Five things that actually make a paper plane go further
From somebody who flies real ones. A paper aeroplane obeys exactly the same rules as a Boeing — there is just less of it.
- Weight at the front. Nose-heavy planes fly straight and far. Tail-heavy planes rear up, stall and drop. This is the single biggest one, and it is the same reason real aeroplanes care so much about balance.
- Sharp, symmetrical folds. If one wing is a millimetre different from the other, it will turn. Press every fold with a fingernail. Fold on a hard table, not your lap.
- A tiny bit of up at the back. Bend the very back edge of each wing up a few millimetres — the same amount on both sides. That is a real control surface, and it stops the nose dropping.
- Throw it level and firm, not up and hard. Most people throw far too hard and far too steeply. Aim slightly above level and let it fly.
- Change ONE thing at a time. Change three and you will never know which one worked. This is the bit that turns a fun afternoon into actual science — and it is what the judges are looking for.
For teachers and parents
This challenge is run by Virginia Beach City Public Schools alongside the NAS Oceana Air Show. It is optional, schools may adjust the constraints to suit their students, and a school may enter one winner or team per category. Principals submit school winners on the district's Google Form, and district winners are then drawn at random from those entries — so a small school has exactly the same chance as a big one.
Winners get to spend time with air show performers — Aarron Deliu among them — and with pilots and other aviation professionals. The official rules, templates and rubric come from your school or the district — this page is a plain-English summary plus flying advice, not a replacement for the district's own document.
Print the student rules sheet (PDF) →
The challenge maps onto Grade 5 standards in science (force, motion and energy), mathematics (metric measurement and the data cycle) and English (collaboration and research) — it is not an add-on to the curriculum, it is a way of teaching it.