But brute strength counts for nothing when it comes to making and flying paper planes. It is a contest (as are chess and badminton) in which little, brainy David would probably have trounced big Goliath. In our stay at the ADFA "qualiflyer" on Monday and in the heats of the distance section young Starcs and Goliaths (cadets of the University of New South Wales, Canberra, at ADFA) seldom got their paper planes to fly more than five metres. Hardly any planes flew in a straight line. There was lots of looping of loops.

Some of the "pilots" (as the launchers are called) saw their planes loop a dainty loop and arrive back at their blushing launchers' booted feet, like bamboozled butterflies. How the mates on the sidelines chortled at their pilot mates' embarrassments! The Australian distance record is 43 metres, but at ADFA on Monday the longest voyage was only 10 metres.

ADFA's cavernous indoor sports centre was one of many university venues being used on Monday for the Australian "qualiflyers" of the competition. Paper planes made from a standard A4 sheet of paper (emblazoned withe the logos of sponsors Qantas and Red Bull) competed for titles in three categories: longest flight duration ("hang time"), furthest distance, and most acrobatic performance.

The prizes are glittering. The three overall winners from national qualifying get delivered to Salzburg, in Austria (the city of fun-loving Mozart, himself a keen paper-plane flyer who made his planes from sheet music), to represent Australia in the international finals. People of 70 nations will take part.

Interest in making and flying paper planes is said to be buoyed by the new, heartwarming Australian movie Paper Planes. The film is lightly based on Australian Story, a 2009 ABC TV feature on Dylan Parker and his friend James Norton, who met at a paper plane competition at the University of Canberra. Composer Nigel Westlake wrote the poignantly titled Do emus dream of flying? and other works for the movie.

At Monday's "hang-time" contest, a mature-age David, in the form of ADFA academic Dr Warren Smith, quietly outclassed the burly cadets. A teacher of engineering design at ADFA's School of Engineering and IT, his painstakingly-crafted plane made by a professorial colleague who teaches aeronautical design ("He folded it for me and I just flew it," Smith testified), stayed aloft, to ooh and aahs and applause, for seven seconds.

Indeed the Australian record is only 8.99 seconds. The world record, set in the olden days of 1998, is a gob-smackingly improbable 27.6 seconds! How could that be? Were there unseen mini-thermals in the hall, perhaps given off by warm electronic equipment? Did fairies (of course invisible) intervene?

Dr Smith was the ADFA host of Monday's tournament, having negotiated with Red Bull to bring the competition to his campus to help get across to the cadets "some sense of engineering, aerodynamics, and fun with the idea of how you can make a piece of paper fly".

Together we looked admiringly at the small, nifty, broad-winged paper plane in his hands while he explained that "its decent centre of gravity helped minimise stall". Its flight of seven seconds may not sound like much, but in the context of the morning and with most planes not staying aloft at all (but falling straight to earth from their launchers' hands, like dead parrots falling off twigs), the plane's seven seconds aloft seemed quite awesome and like an early achievement of the Wright brothers.

Dr Smith's plane had a lot of expertise invested in it, but it was touching to see how many of the cadets also took great pains with the manufacture of their planes, sometimes coming up with very artistic aircraft. Some of the aircraft, while we are thinking of Mozart and Salzburg, were symphonies in paper. As paper plane guru James Norton said in Monday's paper, the making and flying of paper planes is "an art form", and so we thought it a shame that the prizes are only given for feats of flight and not for artistic flair of design as well.

Throughout Monday's romp, a Red Bull juggernaut just outside the indoor arena's open door throbbed with the sorts of music suggestive of the kind of energy that the famous Red Bull beverage is said to give. Out on the floor energetic MC Murray Enders, resplendent in an airline pilot's natty cap, kept up a running commentary of encouragement and advice.

"Nice glide, but in the wrong direction and it's flying upside down," he commiserated as one aircraft sailed elegantly into a wall.

"Nice but not enough oomph. Technique will only get you so far - you need a winning plane as well," he counselled.

"Not too hard, not too soft," he advised as he saw uniformed Mitchell Starc after uniformed Mitchell Starc struggle to launch an object that does not respond either to extremes of force or extremes of finesse. Coaxing is everything.

What a cerebral sport it is! We can be sure that those who go to Mozart's Salzburg for us (Red Bull expects to name them by mid-April) will be some of our brightest and best.