HISTORY OF PAPER AIRPLANES
It was during WWII that materials
were in short for toys. The materials that were available had restricted
use. These restrictions ruled out metal toys, thus all that was available
was paper and wood. This led to airplanes as well as other toys that
were normally made from metals to be prepared with paper or wood. There
was also a shortage of ink that lead to bizarre-colored paper models.
Willis Rigby developed one of the most
popular styles of constructions used for airplanes. Rigby was an Englishmen
who had just moved his company to the U.S. in the late 1930s. His models
were published as individual books and boxed sets. Some models such
as the Douglas Dauntless was even published in newspapers as part of
the colored Sunday Comic Section. Rigby’s products got so popular
that it even led to newsreel coverage showing the steps used to design,
build, and fly one of these paper model airplanes. They range from simple
folded-paper darts to complex 3-demensional models. These airplanes
gave thousands of kids and adults their first try at model buildings.
After WWII however things returned to normal, and paper models rapidly
disappeared. Only a few publishers continued to print paper models afterwards.