For the last few years the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and Department for Transport (DfT) have run a competition for organisations to bid for money to support aviation outreach programmes for young people.
The "Reach for the Sky" challenge fund wants to widen the future pool of people aspiring to work in aviation as the sector expands, involving big technological changes while aiming for greater sustainability.
As a huge fan of aircraft I'm rather keen on this sort of thing. I and a colleague did apply - we wanted to showcase "ComputAviation" careers (yes I made up that word) through our CS4FN* magazine and blog for schools. There's a huge overlap between computer science skills and all things aviation and we wanted to write about them all. Alas we weren't successful, we might try again next year. And we'll probably write about them anyway^ :)
Happily at least two of the funded projects do relate to computer science (in bold below) so I'll be able to write about them on the work blog in 2026, so I'm looking forward to that.
The projects named as being funded in 2025 are (press release 12 Dec 2025)
- Aerobility
- Air League
- Bright Futures
- Codes4Drones
- East London Advanced Technology Training (ELATT)
- Fantasy Wings
- Get with the program
- Mason Foundation
- Tech, Engineering, Creative (TEC) Women
2024 funded projects were
- 4Ward Futures
- Aerobility
- ARPAS UK
- Based in Space
- Children’s Radio UK
- Codes4Drones
- Education and Employers Taskforce
- ELATT
- Get With the Program Ltd
- Kings Academy Lord Wilson
- London Luton Airport Operations ltd
- London Met university
- Manchester Airport Groups
- SaxonAir Charter
- TEC Women CIC
- The Kings Trust
- Youth and Community Connexions
- University of Sussex
2023 funded projects were
- Big Ideas Community Interest Group
- Cambridge Science Centre
- Education and Employers Taskforce
- Flight Crowd
- Harlow College
- Leicester Education and Business Company
- London City Airport
- The Air League
- TEC Women CIC
- University of Leeds
*CS4FN - Computer Science For Fun, a public engagement project from the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science at Queen Mary University of London. We have a blog and a free computing magazine for schools; here are some of the aviation-related articles we've written. We also have a 'jobs in computing' site too with a section on jobs in aviation and computing.
^Ideas for articles include: Ada programming language in avionics and Air Traffic Control, core rope memory in space flight, fly-by-wire avionics, software bugs, digital twins, FlightRadar, GPS, navigation, head-up displays (Pepper’s ghost), flight information boards, ticketing and booking (cookies), air traffic control, on-board wifi, entertainment systems (TVs etc) - and this being hacked, AI decision-making, engine testing, 3D printing, CAD design, biometric passports (Canadian story, Reclaim your name and non-standard letters), ATC (and some aircraft) still have software updates via floppy disks, radar, secure communications, radio (communication protocols), fuel efficiency, moving to battery operated flights, green / sustainability, weather modelling (turbulence), drones and safety, flight simulator software, cyber security, solar flares. Ground-collision avoidance, early use of calculation machines in WW2 aircraft. Computational aeroacoustics at QMUL. Abraham Wald and the ‘red dots’, safety features, checklists, expansion of aviation safety into other fields, semiotics (safety information) and signage at airports (also an example of abstraction), airport semaphore comms by ramp agents. Aviation influencers on TikTok (computing as a sharing medium).
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