• Universally exciting, dynamic, challenging and rewarding activity

• Covers a comprehensive range of Design Make and STEM principles.

• Traditionally practiced at home and occasionally in school

• More accesible than ever through safer, affordable technologies

• Develops observation, critical thinking, probvlem solving, ingenuity, creativity, dexterity, manual skills, planning and organisation, communication skills, teamwork

• Purposeful

• Relevant to life

• Plenty of job opportunutites in the aviation industry

• Generic soft skills that apply to life in general.

​

​

 

My Interests

I built planes as a child; with my own dad who worked at British Aerospace. Himself the product of a series of diplomas and apprenticeships. I was perhaps priviledged to have a dad to do things with but then I did attend a first run ex-grammar comprehensive. I failed pretty much at maths etc but in those days I did metalwork, woodwork and Tech drawings and plenty of makey things in Art. I designed products in my own time using the drawing skills I got from dad. All I learned in A Level science was to confirm what he taught me as we drove to an airfield or two. In this sense I was Home Educated and this got me piped hot onto a Product Design degree course. I won a couple of design awards/competitions and posted with a capital machinery company in Peterborough where i learned so much more about design and about engineering.

What I learned most significantly is that enginners aren't necessarily designers and tend to struggle to see a product as a whole. For this reason the company had a large team of Industrial Product designers to hold things together.  And it worked.

​

But I actually got bored of designing bread making machines. I was much more interested in helping subsequent generations to learn the principles of Design and so decided to plough my energy back into education which at the time was beginning to come out of the 1980s lack of creativity malaise and had seen the introcution of Design into National Curriculum.

​

I taught in three schools ending up heading a department in Ipswich for 5 years and gaining specialist 'technology' status. By then the eduction secretary was presiding and busy returning schools to an antequated model of grammar education, rubbishing teachers as a breed and knocking the industry back 20 years. Children inmy Tech classes  - who thrived in my subject  and needed this for their wellbeing were occasionally taken out of my lessons to do extra maths and english. Apparently to raise them above average as the minister famously decreed for all children. Ironically they could learn lioteracy and numeracy through my subject very much more meaningfully.

​

So I left teaching and started Time and Space Learning with my wife Bev.

​

​​​

Aeroschool Origins

Aeroschool came about because in our T&S work with children at risk of exclusion from school and providing Alternative Educational Provision to schools we sought an activity that resonated with children's innovative interests and abilities. We soon realised than some of our charges were really very very talented.

​

Youngsters wanted to make planes

In 2015 we set about rebuilding RC plane donated by the late Rex Garrod of Brum fame. This led to entering the payload challenges which in those days were attended by a healthy number of UK universities. 

Our own efforts were rewarded by the Jettex Trophy - not for winning but for repeatedly getting back up disaster after disaster!  This spurred us on to win the following year in 2016 and again in 2017 and 2018 and thee of the 5 challenges in 2019. So what had happened in this time? It became clear to us that other UK teams lacked experience in the challenges. Each team entered once only and though much younger our teams knew the challenges and actually what it took to make a successful aircraft. It occured to me that there is little continuity in UK aero education. The challenges stood alone without a clear process of getting there, relatively little celebration or feedback to teams about their efforts. 

​

National Strategy?

In my opinion there remains a need for:

• some kind of centralised knowledge base for aeromodelling

• curriculum staged contintuity in greater and greater depth as there is for music and dance or sports.

• quick build products with parity and flexibility to compoliment the more technical BMFA products.

• path to the Payload Challenges, guidance for entrants, feedback about results and strategies -

​

Since our move to Northants in 2019 our teams took a break from the challenges and in this time  I have been making videos to help assess the situation.

 

Where are we now?

In 2025 Aeronauts team submitted two aircraft in challenges 2 (Cube challenge) and 3 (distance Challenge).

Our 'helpful' video of 2016 depicts our progress in 36 day long sessions, resulting in a win for Distance Challenge. I have since wondered if this is at all helpful in inspiring schools to enter given that most clubs would probably have little more than 2 hrs per week.

​

And so, in three hour weekly sessions we followed a strategy I have developed and that I believ can be replicated in other organisations to get teams to the challenges. 

 

In Challenge 2 we were the only entry. This needs to change - if only to validate our win! 

​

​​​​​​​​

Summary of the Benefits of Aeromodelling​

​

Wellbeing

Irrespective of the enginnering value; Aeromodelling is a powerful education tool that has benefits beyond engineering and that's why we teach it. 

We've had children come to us with all manner of social issues that have grown in confidence and character through making things fly. I think if we can get this right Aeromodelling can be used powerfully in schools and that's my mission! 

​

Credibility

Making something fly is of universal interest and not a little mystery.

​

Personal

When we make an artefact we actually form an emotional relationship with it - it is ours and from it we project aspects of our character and capability.  This is called 'buy-in'

​

Fail proof / guaranteed degree of success

Unlike many tasks where we seek success the flying of a glider is understood to be risky and likely to fail on the first attempt. For this reason learners are less quickly discourgaged by a poor flight and somehow intrinsically believe that with a few tewals their creartion can fly eventually. So nobody looks stupid in front of others.

​

Application of knowledge

Observational skills and interpretation of the glider's behaviour are essential to trimming a glider for flight. The rules are surprisingly easy to learn and they are rigourous  - in a short time a learner can predict how a  glider will fly before the flight and begin to share this knowledge with others. This cements understanding in a practical, demonstrable and non competitive way. Furthermore these concepts can be seen in full size aircraft. In this sense the most basic concepts of flight are demonstrated in the most complex aircraft. This is called purpose and relevance.

​

Creativity - divergent thinking

Once the rules have been learned they can be tested or developed quite safely. This further provides a great sense of purpose and challenge to children for whom the static classroom may be intollerably boring. Reasoning through their ideas is essential at this and the highest levels of aircraft design. One of the most rewarding aspects of our glider kits is the degree to which they can be modified beyond recongnition and still fly or perform aerobatics as required.

​

Convergent - jumping through hoops

Creativity in the aero industry is matched and offset by a level of convergence unique to the industry, The rigour of tolerance, procedure and scrutiny is unparallelled and this aspect gives rigour to the more creative aspoects. At higher levels teams of aeroauts need to communicate to judging engineers their ideas to industrial standards. All good experience and skills. This appeals to both mindsets.

​

Head Start with those who fear failure

When we make craft products we have an expectation and anticipation for them to work. If they don't do as expected there follows frustration and disappointment.

 

With aeroplanes this tends to be different. For some reason when we first fly a new aircraft we accept that it might fly at all without trimming of some kind. When it does fly we are pleasantly surprised. We also understand that flight can be improved - further, higher, faster. Its not a binary concept - its analogue and infused with critical thinking.

 

Even crashes are expected and can be fun - especially to watch back on video!

This is key for those who might otherwise find failure to be intolerable and helps the learner accept that success only comes through multiple failures, versions, changes modifications and adaptations of an initial design.

​

Advances in Technology

As materials, processes and components become more readily available and as stability systems, training systems and simulators are developed the possibilities of using Aeromodelling for education become a reality. Aeromodelling is now taught in schools in some countries. But not the Uk.

 

Iterative Learning Though Experience - REAL freedom to fail

Failure of some kind is inevitable, we just need to control how it happens when it happens and how to use this experience to our benefit. With models, unlike full size, we have the luxury of not being onboard the aircraft! As our design are tested we make use of micro cameras and video footage to understand how what is going on. We use on screen displays to measure the airspeed, ground speed, motor current, battery life, gps location and route home.  Because we can make and remake aircraft quickly and easily the learner becomes much more philosophical about failure and able to accommodate it as part of progress.

​​

​

​

Why does our nation need aeromodelling?

​

Problem for enginnering

There is evidence that some uk graduates on aeronautical degree courses have an incomplete understanding of how to build a flying plane. Perhaps this is because teams divvy up the part of the plane between them and seemingly noby coordinates the whole thing . . ?

Increasingly schools and colleges use computer simulations that work well at full scale but fail to inform the user of how to build a plane at scale.

 

This calls for a training programme for tutors maybe but as importanly it calls for schools and youth to reengage with making physocal real things and not just simulations. This has a cost to it. A big one.

​​

​

National Wellbeing

But more than the struggle of UK industry, the wellbeing of children in education is at an all-time low; prompting record numbers of familys to opt for home education and schools to farm SEND provision to external organisations who often have LESS engineering capability than the school. Thankfully it is this route as AEP (Alternative provision) from which T&S have met our most gifted students.

​

SEND

​In our work with both schools and home eduators over 20 years it is clear to us that many of those consigned to 'SEND are blessed with the very skills we need in industry. This is not just for stereotypical reasons such as the ability to work in great detail and scrutiny but for the learning style which is often much more physical, itterative, personal and dynamic.

​​​

Aeromodelling - The sleeping Giant

With all its attributes and technological development aeromodelling has the potential to revolutionise education. However, despite the plethora of products there is little or no strategy. Yet.​

​

Many schools who use aero products do so on a one-off basis. There is little or no progression into greater things as there is for instance in dance, sports and music. Somewhere in the distance are the BMFA payload challenges - but how to get there? the BMFA can't tell you! How to get started?  How to get the advice that the BMFA stipulate in the challenge rules? 

​​

Aeroschool is a set of resources for learning with continuity and progression into engineering or maybe just into life.

​​​

Mark Adams

​​​​