Book reviews should be honest and forthright, to enable any potential purchaser to have sufficient information to make a sensible decision before parting with his or her hard earned cash. Therefore I will pull no punches…this is a wonderful, wonderful book. It gets top marks for the title alone; (wish I’d thought of it!).

He introduces the book with an informative and interesting discussion about the subject of aerodynamics and how it applies to hand thrown paper planes.

The 33 models featured are all new to this reviewer although one, the Glider Supreme, is interestingly, a sort of inside-out and upside-down version of my "Martin". It just goes to prove how great minds think alike!

 

The aeroplanes are arranged in groups by type and in order of difficulty and many of them look like nothing on earth (which is a good thing!). He does some very interesting stuff with paper, creating loops and tubes and producing useful flaps in the folding process. This has inspired me to experiment in directions I had not previously thought of. Finally he concludes with three 2-piece models including an old-fashioned bi-plane (note to British readers use a 5p piece where he suggests a 1 cent piece).

The acid test of a book like this is to test fly the models. I have folded every one and flown every one. Every one flies well and the majority are very good indeed.

The only thing that spoils an otherwise excellent book is, I’m sorry to say, the diagramming. The symbols used are not quite the internationally excepted standard. His mountain fold looks sufficiently like a valley fold to have tricked me a number of times. The diagrams themselves have been drawn on a computer and there are a few needless inaccuracies in line positioning. Additionally, the pictures of the finished planes do not do them justice at all. This is a regrettable and avoidable drop in standards of what is, in my opinion, the best book of origami flight that I have ever seen. (Modesty forbids I should mention Professor Dodo! )