When David Lowy was 5 years old, his mother bought him a toy glider made from balsa wood.

FORBES: Magazine Article

Kon-Tiki was the name of the balsa wood raft which was used to cross the Pacific Ocean in 1947 in a journey of 8, 000km (4, 900 miles).

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Each one is handbuilt out of sheets of lightweight balsa wood sandwiched between layers of carbon fiber or Kevlar and baked in an oven at 100C for stiffness.

FORBES: Mine's Lighter

Using balsa wood and other materials that would have been available in antiquity, Mr Heyerdahl built the Kon-Tiki, named after a mythical South American king said to have been fleeing for his life, and launched her from Peru.

ECONOMIST: Thor Heyerdahl

After seven years of tinkering, they arrived at a machine with a deceptively simple design: Solar Impulse with its sleek, clean lines, white-gloss finish and rakishly angled 208-foot wings (bent to increase the plane's stability) resembles what you might get had Steve Jobs reimagined a child's balsa-wood glider in giant form.

WSJ: A Solar-Powered Plane Travels Light | WSJ. Magazine May 2013