Day 2, Thursday 27th July

Dear Diary

We welcomed Andrew White from BAE systems this morning who fascinated us with his short talk on the history of flight. We learned how the early pioneers struggled with limited materials and knowledge but overcame the problems with innovative designs.

After the talk we all had a go at making a model aeroplane called a ‘Cygnet’ made out of polystyrene foam, balsa wood, elastic and a propeller. The materials were very fragile and delicate so we had to be careful so as not to break the model. We tested our models in the School Hall and adjusted the wings and tension of the elastic to try and achieve the longest flight.

After lunch, Andrew gave us a few more tips on tweaking the models to enable them to fly outdoors and turn in circles. We then had a competition to see which model flew the longest – Louis plane won by flying for one minute ten seconds- a record. This spurred everyone else onto modify their models and a lot of people managed flights of up to twenty seconds.