Aviation Education—for High Schoolers

An article in September's Orient Aviation highlighted Aviation High, a school in the Brisbane suburb of Clayfield. Since opening with 250 students in 2007, it now has approximately 400 who focus their primary education on skills and knowledge to succeed in various fields across aviation. Despite its young age, it already has an excellent reputation for math, science, and engineering.

In its previous life, the facility was Hendra Secondary College, but was an initiative by the Queensland government to direct students into aviation and aerospace careers. Partnering with industry players likes Qantas and Virgin Blue, the school is installing a wind tunnel, radio room, physics laboratories, and is considering a flight simulator. At the end of each academic year, students focus on the business side by competing in AIRLINE Online, one of several airline management games.

"We offer similar subjects to other schools, but with an aerospace and aviation context," says principal Phil Cooper. "For example, if you are going to do maths and you have trigonometry, you look at an aircraft, or the glide path angle of an aircraft coming in. If you are going to do some calculations on volumes you might work out what the fuel tank volume in a wing might be. If we do history it might be the history of aviation. In geography classes we might look at the socioeconomic impact of an airport on the surrounding area."