This is genuinely incredible. Luca Iaconi-Stewart may just be the world's greatest paper-airplane-maker. Seriously – this guy's work makes your crease-and-fold creations look like utter child's play.


Top photo by Luca Iaconi-Stewart via his extensive flickr album

According to a mini-profile published yesterday at Wired Design, Iaconi-Stewart has been working on this 1:60-scale jetliner for five years. Scrolling through his recently updated flickr album, it's not hard to see why: the level of detail on this thing is astounding.


The time, energy, and fastidiousness required to not only design this model (which he did in Adobe FREAKING Illustrator, based on detailed diagrams of an Air India 777-300ER) but craft it – from the cabin furnishings to the lavatories to the landing gear to the overhead bins to the economy, first-class and cockpit seating – with hand and tweezer, is enough to make your palms sweat.

Just watch this time-lapse of Iaconi-Stweart applying subtle accents of livery/gloss to the model, and you'll get a global sense of how much attention has gone into EVERY aspect of this plane:

Dexterity much? My hands get fidgety trying to thread a needle – can you imagine spending eight hours assembling ONE first-class seat, out of a manila envelope, with a pair of tweezers? I don't even want to think about what it took to design the model's various hatches, latches and doors (the majority of which are functional, by the way). Here's Iaconi-Stewart demonstrating the functionality of three of the cargo doors along the plane's right side – all of which, it bears emphatic mentioning, rely on different hinge and locking mechanisms:


Forward Cargo Door


Small Aft Cargo Door


Door Locking System for the Bulk Cargo Door

Think that's impressive? Check out this video of the model's thrust-reverser:

Seeing all this, I can't help but wonder if the seats recline.

[Luca Iaconi-Stewart via Wired Design]