Welcome to Flying Start Challenge

Flying Start Challenge is a STEM competition for local schools in the South West of England. This year the challenge is being run and sponsored by six aerospace engineering companies: Airbus, Atkins, Leonardo, MBDA, Rolls-Royce and Safran Landing Systems. 

The challenge is designed to allow students to develop their knowledge of flight and get some hands on engineering experience; gaining a top level understanding of an engineering design and build process. We aim to provide an opportunity for pupils to build on their soft skills such as teamwork, communication and problem solving, whilst also having fun!

The aim is for teams composed of four students to design, build and test a model glider that they will present at their regional Fly-Off, where each team will have the chance to fly their glider against schools from the same region. Teams will be judged on various criteria such as the distance flown, innovative design, use of recycled materials and more which will be detailed in a poster presentation. Winning teams from each regional Fly-Off get the chance to compete at the Grand Final. 

COVID-19 Update:

Due to the unforeseen circumstances regarding the national lockdown, the committee adapted the way in which Flying Start Challenge was delivered this year. We distributed several activities to several schools, the activities therein can be completed on a flexible basis. 

Due to the restructuring of the way in which the FSC was run this year, our main competition was entered by students remotely. We ran a poster and glider competition where many different prizes were up for grabs. Check out the page, it can be found under the media tab. We now have all the results and prizes will be distributed shortly. Once this is done a page will be released for all to see the results.

We hope you enjoyed the activity packs provided! They can still be found under the media tab.

Details for how the competition will be ran for the 2021/22 period will be announced before the end of the year. We are hoping the competition will be able to return to its usual format and that we can once again hold Regional finals and the Grand final.