Pupils to build own plane and take to the skies thanks to £30,000 award

Education: Project aims to inspire the pilots and engineers of the future

High-flying school pupils have been awarded £30,000 to enable them to build their own plane.

The youngsters at Kinross High School will be assisted in their efforts to take to the skies by the team behind the project to create a £10 million space centre on the edge of the town.

Their project will begin in November when the Aero Space Scientific Educational Trust (ASSET) takes delivery of a Eurofox kit plane from Slovakia.

It will be housed at the school where, over the next eight months, pupils will learn about all aspects of flight – beginning with assembling the plane.

The school hopes the construction will be complete by summer 2018, enabling pupils to climb behind the controls and take flight.

As the Build-a-plane project continues, instructors from Air Service Training at Perth College UHI will provide pupils with engineering and health and safety workshops, as well as a hangar visit and aeronautics theory lessons.

The cost of the initiative has been met by a £30,000 award from the rural Perth and Kinross LEADER programme, which matches the £30,000 ASSET raised through crowdfunding.

In recent months, the trust has also set up a volunteer group and worked to raise awareness of the project.

ASSET chairman Alisdair Stewart said it was thanks to the generous LEADER funding that the project could get under way.

“We have a wonderful opportunity to engage children in the physics and engineering of flight,” he said.

“It really is going to be a fantastic project for Kinross High School and we hope it will inspire boys and girls to make better informed subject choices and have a wider horizon of career aspirations.

“Once the finished plane has been certified, students will be given the chance to experience the sheer joy of flight. We hope to inspire some engineers and pilots of the future at a time when these skills are in high demand and short supply.”

Mr Stewart also heads Aero Space Kinross (ASK), which aims to create an intergalactic and flight-themed complex capable of bringing around 60,000 visitors to the area each year.

mmackay@thecourier.co.uk

From left: Mr Stewart, Light Aircraft Association inspector Adrian Lloyd, Roger Cornwell and Steve Williams of Eurofox UK and ASK Flying Club investor Neil Watt.