Note that there are at least three areas of law in play here: copyright, which governs the copying of creative works and the financial exploitation of such copying; the related moral rights, which govern the author's right to determine who gets to do what with their copyrighted content; and trademark, which governs the use of distinctive / recognizable product features to identify brands, authors, producers, etc.
Copyright is relevant, because while ideas aren't copyrightable, specific expressions of ideas are, and if your fictional aircraft (or spacecraft) is based on something copyrighted, it may or may not be considered a "derived work" under copyright law. And if it is, then the original author's copyright extends to your work as well - if you then distribute your work, the original author is entitled to financial compensation. Even if you build and distribute it for free. There is a huge gray area, but at the very least, if you use movie footage, "official" pictures, models from sanctioned games, etc., for your model (or for textures), then you're probably in trouble. Even manually traced-over spaceship contours from a movie still might be considered a "derived work".
Moral right applies under the same conditions as copyright, but it is not about financial compensation, but about the right to forbid people to use or distribute the work. If your work is a derived work, then the original author can forbid you to distribute it.
Trademark is entirely different; it isn't about copying, it is about representing a product as belonging to a certain brand, or as being officially sanctioned by the owner of that brand. For example, if you build a flight simulator and call it "Boeing Flightsim", then Boeing will probably come after you, because the name of the sim suggests that the flightsim itself was authorized by Boeing, or even made by Boeing. OTOH, if you make a flightsim that includes simulated Boeing aircraft, and it is made perfectly clear that the sim and the model are not endorsed by or otherwise affiliated with the Boeing corporation, then you are not using the Boeing name as a trademark, and probably can't be sued over trademark violations.
Finally, it's also super important *who* owns the copyright. Not all companies are equally zealous about their intellectual assets. In general, trademarks that are still actively used tend to be defended more fiercely (also because failing to defend a trademark can lead to a loss of trademark rights) than those no longer used. And, also in general, anything owned by Disney will result in a legal deathmatch, and even if you're in the right, you will lose, because Disney can afford way more lawyers than you can. Which means that Star Wars is likely to prove problematic.
Oh, and, obvious disclaimer being obvious: I am not a lawyer, please do not mistake this for legal advice. It's my layman's understanding (as a working programmer and musicians) of the practicalities of copyright and trademark law.