IT WAS all eyes to the skies at Elvington Airfield when school pupils brought their classroom-built rockets to see who could go beyond the clouds.

The event yesterday was part of the national United Kingdom Aerospace Youth Rocketry Challenge (UKAYRoC) which involves students, aged between 11 and 18, having to design a rocket which must be launched to a height of 800 feet and land safely with breaking its payload of two raw eggs.

A spokesman for the competition said: “Students have to work together in teams, just as aerospace engineers do.

“It is not intended to be easy, but it is well within the capabilities of secondary school students with a good background in science and mates, and some craftsmanship skills.”

One of the schools to take up the challenge was Ashville College in Harrogate, which boasts former NASA engineer Ian Dodds as a past pupil. He worked on the historic 1969 moon landing, designing the emergency escape pod for the astronauts.

A spokesman for the school said: “The schools had to create their own rockets from scratch – they are considerable efforts, not just something from a toy shop.”

UKAYRoC is the largest model rocket event in the UK, with winners going on to compete in the international fly-off against the American, French and Japanese winning teams at the Farnborough International Air Show.

The team which emerges victorious wins an all-expenses trip to NASA in Houston, Texas.