SAN ANTONIO – Some people might think making a paper airplane and tossing it around a gym is child's play.
Don't tell that to UTSA student Landen Taylor.
Thanks to creativity, technique and some skill, Taylor is headed to Austria to compete in the Red Bull Paper Wings World Final 2019 competition.Â
Taylor heard about the contest from a classmate who works for Red Bull, so he decided to give it a shot.
"I got nothing better to do on a Thursday night, so let me go try this out and see if I can win a trip to Austria, and sure enough, (I did)," Taylor said.
Taylor won the free trip by making a paper airplane and a video in the UTSA Convocation Center and entering it the contest. Taylor made it into the top five and won a trip overseas.
"I tried to incorporate the UTSA logo in the gym," Taylor said. "The arc de triumph was me up there off the top (referring to the balcony) doing a perfect kind of airplane throw."
When Taylor got the good news on Instagram, he couldn't believe it.
"I was absolutely speechless," Taylor said.
After telling his roommate, Taylor called his mom.
"I said, 'Mom you're not going to believe this," Taylor said. "She didn't believe it. The first thing out of her mouth before I stopped saying anything (was), 'You're going to Austria to fly paper airplanes? Really?'Â I said, 'Yeah, believe it or not.'"
Taylor, a chemical engineering major, will be competing in aerobatics.
If Taylor wins first place, he gets to ride in a Red Bull aerobatics plane.