Paper Airplane Pilots Practicing 'Graceful' Flights in Quincy House

It's very graceful," said Graham Allison '62, teaching fellow in Government, lobbing an orange missile into a Quincy House Senior Common Room coffee cup.

Minor mishaps aside the Inter-Harvard Paper Airplane Grand Prix is shaping into a major event. The Quincy House dining room will be a-flutter next Wednesday and Thursday evenings with the varied creations of paper pilots.

The competition was organized by Allison and Stanley Reiser, research associate in the Graduate School of Public Administration. It is open to any member of the University (including wives and staff).

Gerald Piel, publisher of Scientific American, will determine the winners. Charles W. Dunn, Master of Quincy House, will also serve on the panel of judges. commenting on Master Dunn's credentials, Reiser observed last night that "the Wright brothers are said to be of Celtic origin." Master Dunn is professor of Celtic Languages.

Four Categories

The contest will afford display of an encyclopedic range of talents. There will be four categories of judging: for the stayers, duration aloft; for the ambitious, distance flown; for the showy, aerobatics; and for the aesthetes, Origami (Japanese paper-folding.)

Preliminary eliminations will take place on Wednesday at 8:30 p.m. Finalists will then be selected for Thursday's competition. Piel will present appropriate prizes.

Allison said last night that the contest, for which he expects well over a hundred entries, was inspired by Scientific American's similar contest, which in turn was inspired by the government's search for a design for the Supersonic Transport.

Allison said that physicists, architects, and other scientists have been making planes of all shapes and sized for the contest.

How a plane is thrown is as important as how it is built, Allison continued, so there is hope for athletes.