Let Them Take Flight

Will loves paper airplanes, so it works out well that Tom is pretty good at folding paper airplanes.

A few months ago, Will received two paper airplane books (with pages that are designed to be torn out and folded into various but specific paper airplanes) as gifts. Since then he and Tom have been folding up a storm.

About half of the airplanes I found laying around the house.

We decided to pack up all of the airplanes they'd folded and take them to the TAMU Engineering Building - which hosts a beautiful and spacious three-story atrium perfect for paper airplane flying - to give them a whirl.

It was immediately apparent that many before us had thrown paper airplanes from the third-floor landing.

An Aggie's airplane, stuck on the window ledge.

Tom's first throw.

Will's first throw (which looked more like a pitch).

Hallie's first throw (which looked more like a drop).

And then we lost one.

It least it looked pretty on the window ledge.

Sorting through the options.

The view from the lobby. See the square conference
room that juts out below where Tom and Will are
standing? Hallie managed to get two airplanes stuck
on top of that room. They'll probably never be retrieved.

She loved dropping the planes over the edge.

Looks like Aggies use whatever they can find as paper airplanes.
("Robotics 601")

When all was said and done, we lost five planes that day - the two Hallie somehow flew onto the conference room, and three more on the second and third floor window ledges. I love that Tom can see the planes that he and Will made - in their "permanent" resting places - as he walks down the hallways at work.