Paper airplanes are known to have been made as far back as the mid 19th century, based on an American children's book describing their construction from 1864.[2]

The construction of a paper airplane, by Ludwig Prandtl at the 1924 banquet of the International Union of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, was dismissed as an artless exercise by Theodore von Kármán:

Prandtl was also somewhat impulsive. I recall that on one occasion at a rather dignified dinner meeting following a conference in Delft, Holland, my sister, who sat next to him at the table, asked him a question on the mechanics of flight. He started to explain; in the course of it he picked up a paper menu and fashioned a small model airplane, without thinking where he was. It landed on the shirtfront of the French Minister of Education, much to the embarrassment of my sister and others at the banquet.

In recent times, paper model aircraft have gained great sophistication, and very high flight performance far removed from their origami origins, yet even origami aircraft have gained many new designs over the years, and gained much in terms of flight performance.

There have been many design improvements, including velocity, lift, propulsion, style, and fashion over subsequent years.