Our Story
— by Dylan Parker
The beginning.
Dylan Parker & James Norton
In 2008 we met at a paper plane competition at the University of Canberra. Both of us had no idea what this would turn into and immediately hit it off. James had amazing high-flying ‘time aloft’ planes and I was looking for distance with a pointed dart I came up with on the spot - to this day we both still use those exact planes.
A friendship was clearly born and little did we know we’d see each other again, very SOON.
However, things were about to become quite surreal, and within weeks I was rushed to hospital for emergency surgery to remove a golf-ball sized brain tumour. It was a very serious operation as the tumour had grown around a fairly important set of blood vessels, so I really didn’t know what to expect. James and I kept in touch and after my operation we started to talk about paper planes and all things fun, I also received a pretty awesome phone call saying that we’d both made it to the National Paper Plane Championships. So, with scar in tow, and plenty of repairing to do we got to training.
The national championships was a massive success. James and I both won our categories and our tick to Austria for the World Championships.
The middle.
The World Championships was amazing, 85 countries in attendance and thousands of media and supporters cheering us on. Now, not everything is about winning, but we tried our absolute best. James actually hit the roof having qualified with the best time in heats, so unfortunately got knocked out. We’ll always wonder what would have happened if he didn’t. My guess is he would have won. I managed a 3rd place, the bronze medal, and a massive wave of accomplishment considering what I’d been through.
So did things stop there? Of course not. We returned to Australia with a massive fanfare of interested (and slightly amused) media interviewers and things started to take off. We formed The Paper Pilots just so we could call ourselves something and started to receive lots of requests for classroom visits. The educational value of paper planes dawned on us quite quickly so we did everything we could to support teachers we knew and had family connections to.
It wasn’t long after that when we received a call from Ben Cheshire at Australian Story, a documentary series profiling some of Australia’s interesting stories.
That episode can be seen here.
The end?
Not by a long shot.
That Australian Story episode inspired an amazing and very well-known Australian Director Robert Connolly to direct what he thought was a significantly important film to make for Australian families - PAPER PLANES.
And after a myriad of amazing experiences and visits to schools with a wave of excitement about paper planes in Australia, here we are.
We’re ready, we’re passionate and we’re totally prepared to give the rest of our lives to paper planes in some way or another. We can’t help being absolutely fuelled by the fun, love and positivity that planes bring to our lives, the lives of those we meet and those we may not even know our planes have reached.
Happy flying.
Dylan & James
PAPER PLANES
Trailer to the film, starring Sam Worthington, Ed Oxenbould, Deborah Mailman and David Wenham to name a few.
