David Rush has set more than 200 Guinness World Records, but one had eluded him for years: catching paper airplanes in his mouth. The planes' pointed noses, he found in early attempts, hurt too much to make repeated tries worth it. This month, with help from his 13-year-old niece Ali, he finally cracked it — catching 20 paper aircraft in his mouth in one minute, according to UPI.
The breakthrough came from redesigning the plane itself. Rush switched to a blunt-nosed fold that still stung on impact but no longer felt dangerous, clearing the way for an attempt at the official Guinness category for most paper aircraft caught by mouth in one minute. The pair practiced for a full day, throwing hundreds of planes to find Ali's rhythm before attempting the record on camera.
Their first official attempt came up short, with Rush catching 14 planes against a target of 17. On the second try, Ali — a goalkeeper on her soccer team — found a higher, steadier release angle that let Rush track each plane more easily, and he caught 20 in the span of a minute to claim the title. "Ali had an advantage from her first throw," Rush wrote on his site, crediting her goalkeeping instincts for the steady, well-placed tosses.
The paper-airplane record is only the latest in Rush's long-running project of turning household absurdities into certified world records, a hobby that has also included moving malted milk balls with a drinking straw and setting a hula-hoop record alongside his three-year-old daughter. Rush, an engineer by training, has said the appeal is less about the records themselves than showing that anyone can set one with enough persistence — and in this case, enough practice throws to a cooperative niece with a strong arm and better aim than her uncle's mouth.