Daily Diary by Jonathan Coultas and Jonathan Meekin

Day 2, Thursday 27th July

Dear Diary,

We welcomed Andrew White from BAE Systems this morning that fascinated us with his short talk on the history of flight. We learnt how the early pioneers struggled with limited materials and knowledge but overcome the problems with innovative design.

After the talk we all had a go at making a model aeroplane called Cygnet-made out of polystyrene foam, bolsa wood, elastic and a propeller. The materials were very fragile and delicate so we had to be careful not to brake the model. We tested our models in the school hall and adjusted the wings and tension of the elastic to try and achieve the largest flight.

After lunch, Andrew gave us a thew more tips on tweaking the models to enable them to fly outdoors and tern in a circle. Then we had a competition to see witch model flew the longest-Louis’s plan won by flying for one minute ten seconds-the record. This spurred everyone else to modify their models and a lot of people managed flights of up to twenty seconds.