How to fold an origami rescue helicopter
Fold an orange strip, taper its tail boom, reverse-fold up a fin and fold the front up and back into a deep cabin. Fold a black strip into a T-shaped rotor and another into skids.
You need: Orange paper 33 × 9.5 cm, black strips 21 × 2.5 cm and 10 × 2 cm, glue and a white pen. Hard, 18 steps, about 35 minutes.
Steps
- Edges to the middle. Start white side up. Fold the top and bottom edges in to meet along the middle.
- Fold in half. Mountain-fold it in half along the middle, so the top half goes behind. Now it is a long thick strip, orange on both sides.
- Slim the tail. On the left part, fold the bottom edge up on a slant on both sides, front layer forward and back layer behind, so the boom thins towards the tail.
- Tail fin. Outside-reverse-fold the tail end up and a little back, wrapping it round the boom. It stands up as the fin.
- Nose up. Outside-reverse-fold the front end straight up, on a 45° crease from the bottom edge, wrapping it round the strip.
- Deep cabin. Fold the upright end back on a slant, all layers together, so it lies along the top of the strip. The front is now a deep cabin with a pointed nose.
- Slope the roof. Fold the back corner of the top layer behind on a slant, so the cabin roof slopes down into the tail.
- Rotor: new strip. Set the body aside. Take the long black strip, white side up.
- Rotor: Edges to the middle. Start white side up. Fold the top and bottom edges in to meet along the middle.
- Rotor: Fold in half. Mountain-fold it in half along the middle, so the top half goes behind. Now it is a thin black strip.
- Rotor: mast down. A little left of the middle, fold the right part straight down on a 45° slant.
- Rotor: mast back up. A finger's width down, fold the hanging part straight back up over itself. The doubled bit is the mast.
- Rotor: second blade. At the top, fold the end out to the right on a 45° slant, level with the left blade. Now it's a T: two long blades on a short mast.
- Skids: new strip. Set the rotor aside. Take the short black strip, white side up.
- Skids: Edges to the middle. Start white side up. Fold the top and bottom edges in to meet along the middle.
- Skids: Fold in half. Mountain-fold it in half along the middle, so the top half goes behind. Now it is a thin black strip.
- Skids: struts. Fold both ends straight up on 45° slants, so the strip is a long runner with an upright strut at each end.
- Build the helicopter. Glue the body over the skids, so the struts hide behind the cabin. Glue the rotor's mast on top of the cabin.
Up, up and away!
Draw a big white window on the nose. Spin the rotor and fly to the rescue!