Static models range from mass-produced toys in white metal or plastic to highly accurate and detailed models produced for museum display and requiring thousands of hours of work. Sometimes only part of the aircraft is modelled. Non-flying models are also termed static, display, or shelf models.Īircraft manufacturers and researchers make wind tunnel models for testing aerodynamic properties, for basic research, or for the development of new designs. Model aircraft are divided into two basic groups: flying and non-flying. Look out for these designs in nature as well.Die-cast Boeing 747-400 scale display modelĪ model aircraft is a small unmanned aircraft and may be a replica of an existing or imaginary aircraft. Real helicopter blades are pushed around by powerful engines too.

Real aircraft behave in very similar ways to your glider and paper plane – but they have powerful engines that keep pushing them through the air, so they stay up. Moving through air also creates a kind of friction called air resistance, or ‘drag’, which tends to slow down anything moving through the air. This creates a lift force that counteracts some of gravity’s pull and makes them fall more slowly. But as they move towards the ground, the wings of the aeroplane, the wings of the glider and the blades of the helicopter create higher air pressure underneath than on top. In December 2010 a paper aeroplane thrown by Takuo Toda in Hiroshima, Japan, stayed in the air for 29.2 seconds – a world record. Make your own plane design and see if you can make it travel further than the others. What do you notice if you make the front of the plane heavier? Which way does the helicopter spin? Can you make it spin the other way?

How do your paper planes compare with the shapes of real planes you’ve seen?.Why do these designs behave differently to a scrunched-up piece of paper?.Which design travels fastest and why do you think this is?.Curl the strips of paper into loops and tapethem to each end of a straw to make a glider.

Paper model airplanes plans