In March 2020 twelve Aerprize finalists competed for a fully-funded FAA private pilot certification training at Angel City Flyers, Long Beach, California. Just like 2020 Tokyo Olympians, our champions spent an entire year preparing in lockdown to finally claim their prize in the summer of 2021.
Aerprize 2020 winners, Patrick Gowran of Kinsale Community School and Adam Quinn of Castleknock College, arrived in Los Angeles a year, four months and four days later to start their training to become FAA certified private pilots in Angel City Flyers’ fleet of DA40 aircraft. Just six weeks and sixty flight hours later both Adam Quinn and Patrick Gowran passed their FAA ASEL Private Pilot checkrides to officially claim their ‘pilot’ title on 21 August 2021.
Aero City Group Inc. alongside all other Aerprize sponsors congratulate Patrick and Adam on their extraordinary accomplishment. Patrick Gowran resumes his second year studies in Engineering at University Limerick. Adam Quinn begins his first year studies in Theoretical Physics at Trinity College Dublin.
The Aerprize competition was open to fifth and sixth year secondary school students throughout Ireland. Entrants submitted an original five-minute video explaining one of 16 STEM principles that are applicable to the knowledge requirements of a pilot. Students whose videos were chosen as finalists went on to complete personality and aptitude testing, PC-9 simulator testing and conducted face-to-face interviews with the Irish Defense Forces and Aero City Group Inc. representatives at the Irish Aer Corps base in Baldonnel, Co. Dublin.
Along with Aero City Group Inc. and its subsidiary company Angel City Flyers, a CFR Part 141 Flight School in Long Beach, California, Aerprize is a collaboration between the Irish Science Teachers Association, the Irish Aer Corps, and the Institute of Physics in Ireland.
Aerprize Selection Day. Baldonnel, Co. Dublin, Ireland. 2020.Patrick Gowran adjusts the throttles in Citation Mustang under instruction of Aero City Group Inc. CEO, Seosamh Somers, in flight from KLGB to KSLO.Adam Quinn learns about the G1000 system used in the Citation Mustang from Aero City Group Inc. CEO, Seosamh Somers, in a flight from KSLO to KHWD.
Patrick Gowran (R) and Adam Quinn (L) sit in the cockpit of a Boeing 787.
