Toy plane’s 240km flight

It could easily have been dismissed as a flight of fancy, yet claims that a polystyrene model plane travelled 240km across Britain after being thrown by a child from a Welsh bridge may actually be accurate, according to aerodynamics experts.

The craft was bought at a shop on Anglesey by Abbie Lee and launched from the Menai Suspension Bridge in March by her daughter Tamara, 5.

The Lee family, from Wales, wrote their names and address on models they released and were anxious to see how far they would travel.

But they were amazed when last week Tamara received a postcard from a woman named “Kathy” who said she had found her 53cm model in Charnwood Forest, Leicester.

Abbie Lee said: “We flew them off Menai Bridge and never thought we’d see them again. I couldn’t believe it. We can’t really figure it out, following the maps and that, it’s just so far.”

Professor Robert Kerr, a specialist in aerodynamics at the University of Warwick, said fierce westerly winds created by a low pressure weather system could have picked up the plane and carried it for 240km before depositing it in Leicester.

“The Menai Strait is between the uplands around Snowdonia and Anglesey,” he said. “So in addition to a strong water current between the Irish Sea and the outlet to the River Conwy, there could also be a strong air current.”

Professor Christoph Bruecker of the University of London agreed, saying: “If you have a very light craft and strong currents then you will get enough life and it can travel very long distances. It’s how dandelion seeds travel, or how birds stay on the wing for hundreds of miles.”