Aviation Legends Paper Airplane Book

The Aviation Legends Paper Airplane Book combines great paper airplanes with the greatest aircraft in history.  Jeff and I have been creating paper aircraft designs for 30 years, and know that paper airplane pilots want  good flying paper airplanes that looks great - and the best looking planes are the most famous planes of history. 

We began with creating some new paper airplane patterns with standard paper - similar to the Camel biplane in our World Record Paper Airplane Book, and F-15 in The Kids' Paper Airplane Book.  The wings of most real airplanes are much narrower and longer than traditional paper airplanes (technically, they have a higher aspect ratio), which is not well suited to the large flexibility of standard paper.  As a result the planes in this book are made from a thicker paper like card stock.  Although these planes require scissors to cut out a few parts and a few pieces glued together, the benefit is the ability to make exact scale models of any real airplanes.  There are also the advantages of few folds needed in construction, and very sturdy construction. 

Making replicas of famous airplanes provides the opportunity to not only share the history of each plane, but also describe the history of flight.  The book begins with 10 pages of the history of aviation, from the earliest Chinese kites to hypersonic flight in the future.  Also in this section along the edges of the pages is a timeline showing famous events in aviation, then famous pilots.  Next are four pares for each of the 12 featured paper airplanes - two pages of the history of the plane, a page showing what the plane should look like when constructed with flying tips, and a page of construction instructions.  The aviation history section is not only meant to be interesting, but shows how each of these planes shaped history, and shows how aviation became what it is today.

As with our prior books, it was a priority that each constructed paper airplane not only look excellent, but that they fly well also.  Many paper airplane replicas need weight in the nose to balance properly for stable flight.  Instead of instructing to use paper clips which can vary in size and weight, paper cutouts are included for gluing in the front of each plane for proper balance.  Also where needed the flight instructions describe which planes benefit from adding curvature to the wings for increased lift.

Each paper plane was also constructed with the exact shape of the real airplane, with full color graphics duplicating the features and color scheme of the original planes.  The planes aren't just good looking paper airplanes, they are detailed models (and much easier to construct and less expensive than plastic models) with paper stands included to allow displaying a copy of each plane.  Two to three patterns are included for each plane - so you can display one and still have one or two of each plane to fly.  FYI the reason why there are two of some, and three of others is because the book is printed on giant sheets of 8 pages per sheet before cutting into individual pages, and the number of sheets per plane didn't work out to a constant number.