to be flown immediately without recourse to paperclips etc. The high performance gliders have fuselages that are kept rigid by the use of a balsa fuselage profile bonded to the paper components. The paper used is quite heavy, approximately twice the weight of standard drawing cartridge paper, but lighter than lightweight cardboard. Original White Wings were entirely paper, requiring patience and skill. Later however, balsa-wood fuselages were used, and White Wings were sold "pre-cut", making construction easier. The aerofoil used is a Göttingen 801 (curved plate), and a pattern is supplied as a cutout part of each kit. Paper Pilot History In 1984, Professor E.H. Mathews, lecturer in Thermodynamics at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa published his first compendium of high-performance model aircraft. This book was Paper Pilot (Struik, 1984). This book was very successful, leading to additional volumes, Paper Pilot 2 (1988), Paper Pilot 3 (1991), 12 Planes for the Paper Pilot (1993) and Ju-52, a stand-alone book featuring a scale model. Unpublished models include an Airbus A320 scale model much like the Ju-52, seen on the Tekkies youth program in 1996. The books featured patterns of parts printed on lightweight cardstock, to give the aircraft good flight penetration performance for long-distance flight. Design and development Public interest in the gliders, and their publishing success, allowed some of the development to be broadcast on South African television during 1988 on the first book's release, and again 1993, to coincide with a national paper aeroplane competition tied to Paper Pilot 3's release. Aerodynamic design of the gliders was achieved making use of an optimised small wind tunnel - the flat-glider Britten Norman Trislander was filmed in this facility, with weight balances being used to demonstrate the optimisation of flight. The design of parts of the gliders was achieved using Autodesk AutoCAD R12, then the most advanced version of this CAD software, and one of the first publicly available paper model aeroplanes designed using this technology. Construction of the gliders closely parallels that used in the White Wings series of gliders of Dr. Ninomiya for flat gliders. Later gliders with three-dimensional fuselages use a lightweight construction optimised for flight performance. Innovations include functional wheeled undercarriage which does not contribute to the drag budget while permitting good landings. Performance Paper pilot gliders make use a curved-plate aerofoil shape for best performance. Their design, like the White Wings gliders, is very