James May's Toy Stories: Flight Club

In the 2009 BBC2 series Toy Stories, James May and a team of enthusiastic schoolchildren built a full scale Airfix Spitfire: the biggest in the world. But despite this stunning success the Spitfire, like all airfix models had one major drawback - it couldn’t actually fly. Now James returns to the scene of this triumph determined to go one better. To achieve record breaking aerial greatness for one of the most beloved and iconic of children’s toys: The balsawood glider. In this epic Toy Stories special, James gets to the heart of the nation’s childhood love affair with the model plane and sets out to achieve what seems an impossible dream - the first cross channel flight ever achieved by an engineless, homemade supersized toy. If it survives the perilous 22 mile journey, James’s classic toy glider lovingly built from over 1000 pieces of balsa will smash the British distance record. James’s mission is dedicated to making the dream of flight come true for the generations of children who, like James himself, slaved for hours over balsa and glue only to see their fragile and much loved planes smash tragically onto the unyielding concrete of reality. During his quest James turns Indiana Jones to unearth surprising new evidence that identifies children as the true pioneers of flight and wrestles with an underperforming glider that threatens to barely leave the ground. And what starts as a simple yet noble aim, takes James in many unexpected directions; to a mysterious and barely inhabited island, to helicopters lost in the fog and missing speedboats and what can only be described as the world’s first flying coffin for gliders. Throughout, James is beset by a series of dramatic problems requiring inspired solutions, near disaster and breakthrough which culminate in a thrilling and visually stunning last throw of the dice. Underpinned throughout by James’ own infectious passion for flight, a passion he’s had since he first put glue to balsa as a ten year old, Flight Club is an epic journey into the unexpected.