How it works
Teams must co-ordinate an airlift of tents, food and medicines, in various combinations and quantities, to eight isolated villages. Special crates must be prepared, packed with the correct supplies (represented by different coloured blocks), labelled - and loaded into the cargo hold. If teams don’t match their chosen route with the order in which crates go in the hold, then supplies will be dropped to the wrong villages. The cargo hold is jam-packed so there’s only one way to pack it - and limited fuel prevents any re-routing of the flight! Having solved all aspects of this tough problem, teams fill in their pilot’s log, which is entered into the single computer or laptop to produce a score (although this exercise can be run without a computer).

What it does
An intriguing way to learn a structured approach to problem solving. Teams must define the problem, identify the constraints, set an objective, plan the work and think before acting. They can then allocate the right task to the right person and agree a communication path that keeps all members informed of progress.

Learning Benefits

• Problem solving
• Maximising resources
• Inter-group communication
• Team roles
• Delegation

No of Players
1 to 4 teams

Time
About 1 hour

Customer feedback
"An excellent learning platform - and one of the highlights of the course."
– E. Davidge, RAF

"An excellent activity - straightforward to administer, tests various management skills - and it's a good escape from usual organisational contexts. I also use AirLift for leadership training."
– R. Foster, BBRSC

"'AirLift' is agood activity that we use on our team building course with delegate of mixed ages and experience."
– M. Archer, BAE Systems