Flying Machines

by Nick Arnold, Brendan Kearney (Illustrator)

Overview

Ready to take off? Learn all about aerodynamics and find everything you need to make five fabulous flying machines.

Do you love machines that fly? Can you name some key aviation inventions, from balloons to solar-powered planes? Do you know how flight forces such as gravity, drag, thrust, and lift work? Kids who are raring to make their own flying machines can pore through the theory and history of flight, build five different models — a galactic glider, a deadly dart, a whirlybird helicopter, a single-prop Starlite, and a twin-prop SuperStar — and pick up some expert tips on flying them like an ace. Special features include:
• Tear-out printed sheets for making two paper planes
• Materials for making three propeller-powered machines, including balsa wood body parts, neoprene wings, plastic propellers, wheels, and an elastic band

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780594803324
Publisher:	Candlewick Press
Publication date:	10/15/2016
Pages:	31
Product dimensions:	8.90(w) x 11.20(h) x 1.60(d)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Nick Arnold has written more than fifty books and is best known for the Horrible Science series. He lives in Devon, England.

Brendan Kearney makes his illustration debut with Flying Machines. He lives in St. Albans, England.

Editorial Reviews

06/09/2014
In this heavily illustrated and lightly informational model airplane kit, readers can learn about aerodynamics and the history of flight and create five aircraft of their own: two paper planes using tear-out sheets and three models from precut wood, neoprene, and plastic parts, which are provided in a cardboard container at the back of the book. Step-by-step instructions explain how to make each aircraft, while cartoons show them in flight. A puppetlike boy wearing aviator gear serves as a guide, whether from the cockpit, runway, or parachute, while a time line of the history of aviation runs along the bottom of the pages, taking readers from the first Chinese kites to the 2010 flight of a solar-powered craft. An accessible, edifying entry point into building model planes. Ages 8–up. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

A brief but lucid introduction to aerodynamics, kitted up with materials for five ultralightweight flying models.Supported by clearly labeled diagrams and cartoon portraits of typical and historical aircraft, the explanations of thrust, lift, roll, yaw, pitch and other considerations that must be taken into account when designing even the simplest fliers and gliders will give young aeronauts a good grounding in the basics.
—Kirkus Reviews

An accessible, edifying entry point into building model planes.
—Publishers Weekly

The models are colorful and easy to build... There’s a reason why airplane books are so popular: Appealing to both boys and girls, they’re educational and offer hours of fun.
—BookPage

From the Publisher

2014-10-15
A brief but lucid introduction to aerodynamics, kitted up with materials for five ultralightweight flying models.Supported by clearly labeled diagrams and cartoon portraits of typical and historical aircraft, the explanations of thrust, lift, roll, yaw, pitch and other considerations that must be taken into account when designing even the simplest fliers and gliders will give young aeronauts a good grounding in the basics. Step-by-step directions for assembling the provided models—two hand-launched gliders and three craft driven by rubber-band-powered propellers—are incorporated. Arnold goes on to a discussion of indoor vs. outdoor flights that includes a safety checklist and also suggests some experimental modifications to try out. The booklet closes with a blank "logbook" for recording the results of said experiments, followed by a pair of patterned sheets to cut out and fold into paper planes. This is all bound up with a deceptively large box in which punch-out forms on insubstantial sheets of neoprene and balsa, plus two plastic propellers and some wire, rattle around. Not only is five a paltry number next to, say, the 35 fliers for which Bobby Mercer supplies instructions (if not materials) in his Flying Machine Book (2012), but the paucity of propellers means that the models cannot all be assembled at the same time. Moreover, the balsa is unpainted, and the other pieces are colored on only one side for that extra-cheap look. Adequate from an informational standpoint: for hands-on engineering, a disappointing demonstration that less is less. (Informational novelty/kit. 8-10)

Kirkus Reviews