Community Science – Saint Louis Science Center

Aerospace Component

Youth Exploring Science

Aerospace involves the topics of aviation and astronomy. Working closely with Boeing, NASA and our own Planetarium, teens will progress through activities around astronomy research, flight, and drones. Teens will learn about careers in aerospace and work towards a pilot’s license, a drone Part 107 license, or a large astronomy project. After practicing on advanced flight simulators, teens will fly an actual airplane with the Experimental Aircraft Association’s Young Eagles program!

Interesting Facts

87: This is the number of pilots needing to be trained DAILY in order to meet the demand in the next 20 years for airliners globally, according to Boeing. That’s one new pilot every 15 MINUTES.
769,000: The forecasted need for airplane technicians over the next 20 years. New skillsets are needed to work on ever advancing technological aspects of airplanes, not just aerospace maintenance but also digital troubleshooting and repair.
$102,870: the median annual salary for airline pilots, copilots, and flight engineers as of August 2020
$58,935: the average annual pay for a drone pilot in Missouri

Partners

The Boeing Company
Greater St. Louis Flight Instructors Association
Experimental Aircraft Association

More about the Component

The Aerospace component spends a great deal of our time out in the community. Our teens take the content knowledge learned around Aerospace topics, design hands-on experiences or events for the public, and take our activities out to those who cannot make it to the Saint Louis Science Center. The teens also designed Aerospace activities for use with groups that attend our community programming outreach efforts at the Taylor Community Science Resource Center. We have worked with over 8000 kids and adults in a variety of settings such as libraries, hospitals, parks, and community festivals.

Aerospace teens also fly drones! We have several models of practice drones that are both durable and inexpensive. Cheap drones break easily and cannot be repaired. Future drone pilots need drones that can handle the abuse of crashing (because YOU WILL CRASH the drones) and be capable of repair should they be damaged. The Syma X5C and Parrot A.R. Drone 2.0 are the two models we use to train our teens in proper drone maneuvers. Once they are secure in flying our practice drones, the DJI Phantom 4 and Mavic Pro await them!