James May in paper plane challenge at RAF Cosford

He may have been at RAF Cosford, but Top Gear presenter James May was more interested in paper planes than the real thing.

May was at the museum, near Shifnal, to film an episode of James May's Toy Stories, for a Christmas special – and invited local schoolchildren to attend to create and decorate their own paper planes.

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Pupils from Thomas Telford School were among those who took part in the challenge.

They had been asked to take along paper planes their parents had made and designs they might have discovered in books.

A giant balsa wood aircraft will then be made and dropped from a balloon over the Kent coast at a future date.

May said what they were attempting to do – fly the large glider – had never been done before and may or may not work.

He said: "We asked these kids to get any paper designs from their parents and out of books. We are having a sort of paper air plane throw-off. The winner will get a CD and the chance to name our big glider."

The programme will also re-visit the model Spitfire made as part of the last programme at Cosford.

Then youngsters were encouraged to ditch mod-cons like Xboxes and iPods and instead get to grips with Airfix, the model-building hobby which captured the hearts of a young generation in the 1950s and early 1960s.

The programme showed the youngsters struggling to get to grips with the fiddly parts during early filming at the school.

One pupil described Airfix at the time as 'evil' while another said it was for 'older people'.

But the group came together to build a huge Airfix replica of the World War Two Spitfire plane – the exact size of the original plane and a pilot based on Mr May – which is still on display at the museum.

Mark Hudson, deputy head at Thomas Telford, said yesterday all the pupils, who are from year 11 and year 8, were excited about taking part. He said: "The year 11 students were the original class involved in James May's Toy Stories. We were contacted about three weeks ago."

Mrs Michelle Morgans, for the museum, said: "The pupils were making paper gliders and coming up with different designs and competing against each other.

"The winning design is then going to be developed into a balsa wood giant glider which will be launched from a balloon over the Kent coast."

She said: "It was a fantastic pleasure to have him here the first time and having him come back to film is brilliant."

Mrs Morgans said a number of visitors to the Cosford Air Museum were able to watch the filming.

Mrs Morgans said the Spitfire made previously was really popular with visitors, adding: "It's one of the key questions are museum attendants get asked – 'where is the James May Spitfire?'

"We're sure whatever he does this time will be just as popular."

By Lisa Rowley