How do you build the perfect paper airplane? It helps to be a real-life airplane designer.

Dillon Ruble, Nathan Erickson, and Garrett Jensen are aerospace engineers. Last December, they broke the world record for longest paper airplane flight.

Aircraft design runs in the family. Mr. Ruble and Mr. Jensen both work for airplane company Boeing. So did their parents. They grew up attending company events.

“We would fold paper airplanes back then as a fun childhood activity,” Mr. Ruble told Boeing’s newsroom. “Origami, or the art of folding paper, became a long-term passion.”

The men based their paper plane on real-life hypersonic jets. Hypersonic jets can travel at five times the speed of sound, or 3836.35 miles per hour. The engineers named their paper plane Mach 5.

They spent over 400 hours perfecting the design. They tried different origami methods. They tested varying weights of paper. After that, they spent four months practicing.

Then came time for the official flight.

The engineers went to an indoor soccer field in Crown Point, Indiana. A surveying team brought equipment to take precise measurements.

Officials placed a red flag on the field. This flag marked the previous record distance. The old record was 252 feet and seven inches. That’s about three-fourths the length of a soccer field.

Mr. Ruble threw the paper plane as hard as he could. The first try fell short. So did the second. On the third attempt, it passed the red flag. It flew 289 feet and nine inches.

The men officially set a new Guinness World Record. Their hard work and practice paid off.

“Find a project you are passionate about,” Mr. Ruble says. “Embrace working hard at it too. That’s what our team did.”

Why? Fun pursuits can lead to great discoveries when harnessing God’s natural laws. Plus, hard work, practice, and teamwork can turn dreams into reality.