ACP Closes 2025/26 Roadshow at Altrincham Grammar School for Boys

The Schools’ Aerospace Careers Programme closed its 2025/26 Roadshow on Wednesday 8 July 2026 with a first visit to Altrincham Grammar School for Boys. Around 110 students attended, most of them Year 12 students from the host school, joined by groups from visiting schools that included a number of Year 10s.

With sixth formers making up the bulk of the room, much of the day’s content dealt directly with decisions now close at hand. Year 12 students are within a year of committing to university courses, apprenticeships or training applications, and Manchester Airport sits only a few miles from the school, giving the flying careers under discussion a visible local anchor.

The presentations followed the running order the team has used through the summer term. Chris Marshall opened on the direction of the industry, from automation and advanced simulation to the wider shift into the Fifth Industrial Revolution. Mike Stokes set out the path to a commercial licence and the operational careers beyond the flight deck. Chris then took a second session on drones and their use across industry, before Ogi Damjanovic finished on virtual reality design and its place in professional engineering. Spot, the quadruped robot built by Boston Dynamics, appeared at the close of the morning.

The final afternoon of the Roadshow year was also one of its hottest, with the temperature reaching 30 degrees as the breakout rotations ran. Mike kept all three flight simulators in use throughout, the FPV drone simulators introduced the fundamentals of drone handling, and Ogi’s VR design station had students building and walking through their own 3D environments. The VR Flight Experience completed the circuit, giving a cockpit-level view of the job the morning’s presentations had described. The heat did nothing to thin out the rotations, and the equipment stayed busy through to the final session.

The visit brought the 2025/26 Roadshow to a close, and the programme now pauses for the summer break. The ACP thanks Andrew Gallimore, Careers Lead at Altrincham Grammar School for Boys, for organising the visit and hosting the final event of the year.