Family Mission: Paper Plane Challenge

Hi everyone! I'm Ben shires and I'm a TV presenter and normally I'd be filming this in a TV studio. But instead, just like many of you, I'm self-isolating at home at the moment which means I can't go and visit some of my favourite places just like Imperial War Museum Duxford site which houses some absolutely incredible aircrafts. But just because we can't visit places like that doesn't mean that we can't still do things and learn things just like marvelling at the incredible nature of flight and we're going to do that with this week's IWM family mission Paper Plane Challenge!  

Yep, that's right. Your mission this week is to build your very own Vulcan and Spitfire aircrafts. Now, I know you're thinking: Ben how can I possibly build two of the most iconic aircrafts in British aviation history from the comfort of my own home? Well, cool your jets, put down your spanner. These are paper planes, they're not full-scale replicas. Oh, and luckily for us, the clever people over at Imperial War Museums have created a template for these Vulcan and Spitfire paper planes. 

So, if you check out the link below, you'll be able to download and print off that template and it'll help you to build your plane. And don't worry if you don't have access to a printer, you can always use that template as a guide to draw your own and then well you can see how you get on with them. Maybe you could split into teams in your families and fly the planes against each other - see how much floor you can cover. Or you could build both of the aircrafts and see which one flies the best in your own little game. Whatever it is, you just need to have fun doing it.  

And I'm going to show you exactly how you build them. Print it. Cut it. Fold it. Finish it! So, there you have it. That is my Vulcan paper plane. It looks great, but does it fly great? Not really, not at all in fact. I'm sure yours has worked out a lot better than mine. So, please do tell us all about it in the comments or the thread below. You can post a photo or even better a video of your paper plane in action - we would love to see that.  

Please do keep in touch with us and, in the meantime, to inspire you here's some actual footage of a Spitfire flying past at the IWM Duxford Battle of Britain Air Show in 2018. It's magnificent and believe me time flies when you're having fun. See you!