Each week St Columban's College Aero Club meets with Flight Youth Engineering to build a 2-seater VANS 12 light aircraft. We have completed both wings, the tail and the empennage. In 2022 we will complete the fuselage. This exciting program provides our young students with priceless industry relationships with aviation engineers, builders and pilots, as well as providing valuable employment skills.

We are asking the community to get behind the students and help sponsor the next part of the build by purchasing some raffle tickets.

A massive thank you to Steve from Snap-on Tools Caboolture for donating all the the prizes, without his generosity we would not be able to have such quality prizes on offer. We also thank our industry mentors from Flight Youth Engineering for their unwavering commitment every Wednesday afternoon in 2021!

To find out more about this much needed STEM Education program for our youth and the aviation industry visit and follow our Aero Club instagram stc_aerospace_futures_program for regular plane build updates;

• EIGHTEEN YOUNG PEOPLE, AND EIGHT ENGINEERS ARE BUILDING AN INDUSTRY CERTIFIED VAN'S RV 12 AIRCRAFT ON WEDNESDAY AFTERNOONS
• MENTORED BY NOT-FOR-PROFIT FLIGHT YOUTH ENGINEERING SPECIALISTS
• MORE THAN 100 YEARS OF COMBINED AVIATION EXPERIENCE PROVIDED BY THE ENGINEERING MENTORS EACH BUILD SESSION
• MAKING AVIATION EXCITING AND ACCESSIBLE TO ALL STUDENTS
• BUILDING ESSENTIAL LIFE SKILLS

When complete the aircraft is sold into the Australian Aviation market with funds injected back to start the process of building the next VANS Aircraft. 

Our program has a strong focus on accuracy and students are taking pride in their work, to ensure it is perfect and will pass safety checks, when complete.

The VANS RV 12iS is a proper-designed aircraft and it has to pass all of its usual certification processes. When a student makes a mistake, we actually celebrate it. We want the students to fail but failing well means they identify and they call out that this is not good enough, they put their hand up to one of the mentors and say this is not right.

There is a relationship between the mentors and the students. The experience these mentors have, they are feeding that to the students. Even though some might be heading to retirement, that experience and wisdom isn’t walking away from the industry. It’s being given to these students, who will then follow on and really make things happen in the aviation industry.

INDUSTRY - COMMUNITY - EDUCATION - YOUTH - STEM INNOVATION