In October 2022, the Langley Flight Foundation proposed the creation of an aviation-based annual STEM event for Stafford County Public Schools (SCPS) students modeled after the Culpeper Air Fest STEM program.(https://www.culpeperairfest.com/stem/). In response, SCPS leadership began a collaborative effort with the Stafford Regional Airport, Germanna Community College, and the Foundation to create ACES (Aviation Careers Expo in Stafford) Day.

On November 1, 2023, 160 Stafford County 5th graders visited the Stafford Regional Airport for the first annual ACES Day featuring aviation-based STEM experiments and career demonstrations by:

2023 STAFFORD COUNTY ACES DAY

These organizations volunteered their time and resources for a full day to engage students with presentations on pilot training and aircraft maintenance, flight simulators, and drone and robotics demonstrations.

The Goal

The goal of the ACES Day event is to expose students to a variety of aviation and STEM career opportunities at an early age to inspire greater participation and attention during in-class STEM instruction and encourage the pursuit of post-graduation educational opportunities, apprenticeships, and careers. The 2023 ACES Day will be a test run for what is hoped to be an annual program that will be expanded to include additional schools in the future and serve as an introduction to a future aviation education pathway at the high school level.

To prepare students for ACES Day, the Foundation and Spydar presented the history of flight in Stafford and demonstrated Spydar’s innovative drone technology the week prior to the event. The students then experimented with the Langley Flight Foundation’s Principles of Flight lesson to learn the basic parts of an airplane, forces acting on an airplane in flight, the rotations an airplane experiences in flight, and how control surfaces are used to control an airplane in flight.

Principles of Flight Lesson Page