Engineering Facilities

Facilities available to our students have been fully approved by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). With access to an EASA-approved suite of practical training facilities, our students can use a range of industry-standard facilities. Facilities include a gas turbine maintenance workshop, simulated aircraft shell riveting area, hand tools workshops and welding bay, plus clean and dirty composite workshops for specimens and repairs. Dedicated laboratory space for electronic practical tasks, avionics systems, hydraulics and pneumatics are also a key feature of providing a hands-on practical experience for our students.

Our Aerospace Centre is also home to two aircraft hangars with civil and military aircraft, and a full motion, three axes Merlin MP521 flight simulator can be programmed for several aircraft types that include the Airbus A320 and the Cessna 150. We also have a sub-sonic wind tunnel which is used for basic aerodynamic instruction, testing and demonstrations on various aerofoil shapes and configurations.

We also have dedicated workshop space for mechanical engineering. Our mechanical engineering facilities are of the standard you would expect to see in industry. They include well-equipped computer rooms using state-of-the-art design and analysis software (SolidWorks, Ansys, LS-Dyna, SolidCAM, and Phoenix), and dedicated project and workshop spaces.

Our workshops boast a laser cutter, 4 axis CNC router, rapid prototyping machine, Coordinate Measuring Machine (CMM) and Computer Numerical Controlled (CNC) lathe and milling machines. We also have our own augmented reality welding training simulator, flight simulator, two wind tunnels, and gas turbine plant. Additional laboratory space is also equipped for composite making, additive manufacturing, welding, aluminium casting, and material and non-destructive testing.

The general electronics lab is split into three sections – Computer Aided Design (CAD) and embedded systems, practical electronics, and communication engineering. You will learn how to use industry-standard software, construct prototypes, build and test printed circuit boards and use a range of equipment such as oscilloscopes and signal generators. In the communication engineering section, you will undertake experimental set-ups to support your understanding of theoretical principles. These set-ups include analogue and digital modulation schemes, microwave antennas, time and frequency division multiplexing, coding, transmission lines and fibre optics.

The power and renewable energy lab is where you will learn about the key components and construction skills involved in planning, designing, building and testing electronic circuits which are used in micro renewable energy systems, analyse performances and produce feasibility reports. Equipment you will find yourself using includes a photovoltaic solar energy unit, wind energy unit and lab-volt stations.