This is genuinely incredible. Luca Iaconi-Stewart may just be the world's greatest paper-airplane-maker. Seriously – this guy's work makes your crease-and-fold creations look like utter child's play.

Top photo by Luca Iaconi-Stewart via his extensive flickr album

According to a mini-profile published yesterday at Wired Design, Iaconi-Stewart has been working on this 1:60-scale jetliner for five years. Scrolling through his recently updated flickr album, it's not hard to see why: the level of detail on this thing is astounding.

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The time, energy, and fastidiousness required to not only design this model (which he did in Adobe FREAKING Illustrator, based on detailed diagrams of an Air India 777-300ER) but craft it – from the cabin furnishings to the lavatories to the landing gear to the overhead bins to the economy, first-class and cockpit seating – with hand and tweezer, is enough to make your palms sweat.

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Just watch this time-lapse of Iaconi-Stweart applying subtle accents of livery/gloss to the model, and you'll get a global sense of how much attention has gone into EVERY aspect of this plane:

Dexterity much? My hands get fidgety trying to thread a needle – can you imagine spending eight hours assembling ONE first-class seat, out of a manila envelope, with a pair of tweezers? I don't even want to think about what it took to design the model's various hatches, latches and doors (the majority of which are functional, by the way). Here's Iaconi-Stewart demonstrating the functionality of three of the cargo doors along the plane's right side – all of which, it bears emphatic mentioning, rely on different hinge and locking mechanisms:

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Forward Cargo Door

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Small Aft Cargo Door

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Door Locking System for the Bulk Cargo Door

Think that's impressive? Check out this video of the model's thrust-reverser:

Seeing all this, I can't help but wonder if the seats recline.

[Luca Iaconi-Stewart via Wired Design]