Airplane Coloring Pages

Every child looks up when a plane goes over. These airplane coloring pages follow planes of all ages and sizes, from open-cockpit biplanes to jets at the gate, and stay a while at the airport where most children first see one up close.

The old planes come first. A propeller biplane flies over a patchwork of farm fields, a triplane loops the loop in a curl of smoke, a pilot in a leather cap and goggles waves from an open cockpit, a mail plane follows a coastline past a lighthouse, a crop plane skims a field of sunflowers, a glider is towed over the hills, and an old propeller plane rests in a meadow of wildflowers. Planes that land on water and snow have pages of their own: a seaplane on a calm lake, a float plane tied up by a log cabin, another lifting off a river in a spray of water, and a bush plane on skis below jagged mountains.

The airport has the rest. A passenger jet waits at the gate with its stair truck and baggage carts, a wide-bodied jet is guided in by ground crew waving their wands, a cargo plane opens its nose for a truck to drive in, a control tower watches planes taxiing, a mechanic works on an engine from a stepladder, and planes wait in a hangar with the doors open to the sunset. Inside the plane, one page cuts away the cabin to show the rows of seats, a flight attendant pushes her trolley down the aisle, and a window looks out over a wing with fields far below.

In the sky, jets pass towering clouds, a plane climbs away past a wedge of geese, five jets fly in formation with smoke trails, a stunt plane flies upside down over a crowd, skydivers step to the open door, and a small plane crosses a rainforest. For fun there is a chibi plane with eyes on its windscreen, a boy running with a toy plane, children building a cardboard one, a model plane on a workbench and a paper plane over the rooftops. A propeller mandala and a border of small planes around a big airliner close the set.

Twelve seconds at Kitty Hawk

The first powered airplane flight lasted twelve seconds. On December 17, 1903, on the sand dunes of Kitty Hawk in North Carolina, Orville Wright flew about 120 feet, less than the length of a modern airliner, while his brother Wilbur ran alongside. Their plane was a biplane, like several on these pages, because two wings held together by struts and wires made a light frame strong enough to fly.

Biplanes stayed common for about thirty years, carrying mail, dusting crops and flying in air shows. Then stronger metal wings made the second wing unnecessary, and the single-wing planes that fill airports today took over.

How a wing holds a plane up

A wing is shaped and tilted so that it pushes air downward as it moves forward. The air pushed down pushes the wing up. The curved top of the wing also makes the air above it flow faster and press less than the air below, which helps. That is why a plane must go fast before it can leave the runway, and why the wing on the window page is so wide.

Children can feel it themselves: from a car window, with a grown-up watching, hold a flat hand out and tilt the front edge up slightly. The hand rises.

Colors of real planes

• Airliners are usually white on top and gray or white underneath, with the airline's colors on the tail. Let the child invent an airline and paint its tail.
• Old biplanes were covered in painted fabric, often bright red, yellow or dark green, with silver or black struts.
• Seaplane floats and bush planes are often painted red, orange or yellow, so they can be spotted from far away in the snow or on the water.
• Air show jets trail smoke in red, white and blue, or in the team's own colors.
• Ground crew wear high-visibility vests in yellow or orange, with silver stripes.

For a clear sky, color the sky blue lightly and leave the clouds white, then shade just the bottom of each cloud with a little gray. That flat gray base is what makes them look full of air.

Takeoff pages and busy airports

The quickest pages keep the sky open and the shapes large: a jet passing big clouds, the view from the window, the air show formation. Quick to color, above the grid, begins with:

• Jet flying past big clouds
• Wing seen from a plane window
• Air show jets trailing smoke

The detailed ones fill the page with fields, seats, trees or tools. Lots of detail begins with:

• Biplane over farm fields
• Flight attendant with a trolley
• Float plane by a log cabin

Color it, then fly it

Any page on this list can take off. Once a page is colored, fold it into a classic paper dart: fold it in half lengthwise and open it, fold the two top corners into the center line, fold the new slanted edges in again, then fold the whole thing in half and fold each wing down. The colors end up on the outside of the plane. Hold a contest in a hallway: longest flight, straightest flight, best-looking plane. The biplane over the fields and the propeller mandala make the most colorful darts.

Printing a fleet

Every airplane page is a free PDF drawn on A4 at 300 dpi. Print at full size on A4, or with "fit to page" on US Letter, which makes the picture about six percent smaller and keeps both wingtips on the paper. The printing guide explains where the setting is. Add to pack gathers a whole fleet into one file. Other machines are in the vehicle coloring pages, with more on the ground in the car coloring pages, the train coloring pages and the truck coloring pages.