One of my best pals comes to visit me only once a year, roughly speaking. That makes him a pal, because like that I get some work done! The only thing about him, however, is the fact that when he comes, he is sure to have something to gloat over, leaving me with an inferiority complex.

"Well, Rig," he says, "so they've invented a jet-plane." Then I always know where to expect the mean chuckle. "What about your paper models now? They'll have to have asbestos gizzards 'cos the kids won't want rubber-driven jobs any more."

Well, on this occasion, at least, I did have a come back, because it happens I have built models of fireproof paper! One of these models had an aperture like a present-day intake, into which I passed a small aluminum container filled with smoldering touchwood. When the model was flown, the air pressure from the propeller stream simply made that touchwood white hot, and the resulting clouds of blue smoke which came out both from the cockpit and from the tail-end aperture, made spectators' hair rise, and pickled the rubber into the bargain! Well, it was a sort of skywriting effort. If the paper had not been fireproofed though, the model would probably have taken fire more than once as the aluminum container eventually fused and fell apart!

When I started out modeling aeroplanes in paper, I knew little or nothing about paper. Eventually I learned, often the hard way, that good paper is a very fine, strong type of stressed-skin structure, needing a minimum of reinforcement. Such models are seldom in the lightweight class, bu6 I have had very spectacular results, and sometimes have had to walk uncomfortably far to fetch a model back, owing to the way it has reached suitable heights from which to glide downward.

The one experiment I still have to make, or will be happy to have someone make for me, is to wrap a paper model round a small gas motor. A model of the general type and dimensions of the one I am holding in the photograph, and which has most of the characteristics of a modern fighter. This model is built from the stoutest heavyweight artist' watercoloring paper. Its main deviation from realism is the single-surface wing, but the, most of my models which fly have been built with a single surface wing-firstly, because this type of wing is very resilient, bending back and snapping out straight again on bad impacts, and secondly, because this type of wing flew any of these models better and with more stability than did those having double surface or orthodox wings. In the picture with the gang around me, I am demonstrating an instance of the flexibility of these wings.

Paper models can be built in almost any reasonable size. I have had scale models of two-and-a-half-inches span buzzing round my head, as well as a giant, mounting a twelve-inch propeller, which had detachable double-surfaced wings. When completely built, this model, span four feet, was a heck of a weight! I recall trying to glide it in some grassland ­it didn't! It either hit the turf with a thud or it zooped up, and I caught it lest it land like a torn Russian boot. However, as I had an audience, there was nothing to do but wind it up full and pray. Excusing myself in advance to the more superior looking of my audience (probably now Spitfire pilots!). I said something like this, "You will now see a model about to climb hell for leather, do an outside loop, and brain whoever is the slowest getting out of its way." Well, what happened? That model climbed to about one hundred and fifty feet, started the outside loop, showing up on the ground its beautiful cabin lines. "Well, here she comes," I said. But she didn't! Still at the height she made, she suddenly flopped over, right side up, sped about a thousand feet with wind under her tail and proceeded to make the lightest landing I ever saw that type of ship make!

The only thing essential to the rigidity of larger types (passing a two-foot-six-inch span), is a pair of spruce spars to be glued under paper strips inside the fuselage, starting immediately behind the balsa nose-rim (or glued into it) and continuing down to the edge of the tail. Naturally, this is best done while the fuselage pattern is still in the flat.

Obviously, only the very best paper should be used if the models are to be rubber driven or are to carry a gas motor and the sheet should be worked upon in a position where its grain is along the length of the parts, so that the fuselage will have maximum tensile rigidity, and the wings will have their snap outwards, rather than across.

In all cases, the lines of a paper model, as well as the expedient strength, will be a matter for a neatly carved balsa nosepiece (when you can get your next chunk of balsa!). This nose piece will be of two parts; one, the block with shaft tube itself, and the other, the rim to be carved flush with, and glued into, the paper sides at nose, right up against the longerons (if the model is of a large-span type). I have found from experience that a model of not more than fifteen inches span needs no weighty wood reinforcement and can be built from quite thin drawing sheet. Midget models of four or five inches span can be built from good typewriting paper.

The Supermarine model shown in the photograph is one of twenty-two-inch span. It has a landing gear of the old-fashioned type, inside the legs of which there is securely glued a frame of steel wire. I used this landing gear simply because it goes with the type of machine then being designed, but in later models I introduced a sprung-steel-wire landing gear such as is seen on the giant model illustrated. Supermarine has a very breath-taking flight performed in two and a half circles at relatively high speed, and it reaches about a hundred feet as seen in the photograph, taken in Central Park, of a typical flight.

If you follow these basic ideas I have set down, I can assure you of many pleasant and surprising hours at paper modeling.