Aeronautical Engineering

A set of resources to encourage students’ awareness of career opportunities in this important engineering sector

Aeronautical Engineering

These resources have been developed with the support of the ERA Foundation, to help students understand roles and career paths into design and manufacturing, with aeronautical engineering as the main context. They include eight video case studies of engineers with different roles, a teacher guide and a series of PowerPoint based challenges for Key Stage 3 students. In these the eight engineers are presented as drawn characters, offering challenges to:

  • Understand the principles of flight by making a glider that flies the furthest
  • Powered flight: adding power to make it fly further and test other factors
  • Drone mountain rescue: programming drones to fly to and from locations in a controlled way
  • Use engineering drawing to draw and model an aircraft wing.

The emphasis and level in each is different and include using accurate measuring and making skills, programming, and learning about the factors that affect control of aircraft, each with strong STEM links to maths and science.

The eight videos offer a brief look at the roles of engineers, from apprenticeships to those in the workshop and designers. Teachers can use the resources to introduce students to opportunities in this sector of engineering and the roles in it that they may not have considered before. A teacher guide introduces careers in engineering, outlines each activity and its focus and provides links to career opportunities and further information. The appropriate KS3 National Curriculum content is also included.

There are come costs associated with some of the activities but if schools do not have access to drones and powered flight modules the activities can be adapted and developed into research, design-only, or design and make projects to suit your school and pupils. They can be used with individuals or as group-based tasks and include opportunities for research, discussion and written work.

All the activities and videos are free to access and download.

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