Three’s a Union: ECSU, AeroX, Piedmont Flight Training join forces “to pave way for Flying Cars!”

ECSU (Eliz­a­beth City State Uni­ver­si­ty), AeroX and Pied­mont Flight Train­ing are “join­ing forces” to expand avi­a­tion edu­ca­tion, strength­en and diver­si­fy the indus­try work­force and build an autonomous urban air­craft infra­struc­ture in North Car­oli­na, reports a press release. The 10-year col­lab­o­ra­tion began ear­li­er this month and can be renewed in 2032.

This three-way col­lab­o­ra­tion aims to build a tech-savvy labour force and infra­struc­ture need­ed to keep North Car­oli­na an avi­a­tion leader for decades to come and help meet today’s avi­a­tion oppor­tu­ni­ties, as well as emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies of the future.

The Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty Mar­ket (AAM) that includes eVTOLs, drones and indi­vid­ual Fly­ing Cars is expect­ed to be a USD1.5 tril­lion mar­ket by 2040.

: ECSU offers Avi­a­tion Sci­ence and Unmanned Air­craft Sys­tems degrees in North Car­oli­na, which will expand to the Win­ston-Salem region through an online avi­a­tion degree pro­gram and flight train­ing part­ner­ship with Pied­mont Flight Train­ing (PFT).

: Pied­mont Flight Train­ing is soon to be ECSU’s affil­i­at­ed flight school part­ner,  train­ing stu­dents at its Smith Reynolds Air­port facil­i­ty in Win­ston-Salem that includes a pilot’s license. PFT will be the exclu­sive provider of flight train­ing ser­vices for ECSU’s avi­a­tion sci­ence degree.

: AeroX which is a non-prof­it organ­i­sa­tion com­prised of busi­ness, gov­ern­ment and com­mu­ni­ty part­ners, was recent­ly award­ed USD5 mil­lion from the North Car­oli­na Gen­er­al Assem­bly to build an unmanned air­craft sys­tems (UAS)traffic man­age­ment sys­tem in Win­ston-Salem.  ECSU will pro­vide stu­dent and fac­ul­ty resources and exper­tise to help cre­ate this low-alti­tude air traf­fic con­trol sys­tem. AeroX will offer two paid advanced air mobil­i­ty (AAM) sum­mer intern­ships to pro­vide expe­ri­ence in the avi­a­tion indus­try and sup­port AeroX’s STEM-relat­ed activ­i­ties.

ECSU Chan­cel­lor Kar­rie G. Dixon said, “We’re diver­si­fy­ing the work­force, giv­ing our stu­dents a bright, sta­ble eco­nom­ic future and sup­port­ing the avi­a­tion indus­try and our state all at the same time.”

David Mounts, PFT own­er and mem­ber of AeroX’s board of direc­tors, com­ment­ed, “AeroX is cre­at­ing America’s first urban air mobil­i­ty sys­tem to attract com­pa­nies and cre­ate tech­nol­o­gy jobs, while Pied­mont Flight Train­ing and ECSU are prepar­ing stu­dents for avi­a­tion careers.”

He con­tin­ued, “Our part­ner­ship with ECSU will help us pre­pare our local work­force and expand access to high-poten­tial job oppor­tu­ni­ties right here in our com­mu­ni­ties.”

Basil Yap

Basil Yap, Pres­i­dent of AeroX and appointee to NASA’s Aero­nau­tics Research and Tech­nol­o­gy Round­table, added, “We are cur­rent­ly see­ing the biggest change in avi­a­tion since the jet engine. Over the past five years, North Car­oli­na has estab­lished itself as a leader in the evolv­ing UAM indus­try. This col­lab­o­ra­tion between AeroX, ECSU, and Pied­mont Flight Train­ing ensures we are giv­ing our com­mu­ni­ties the edu­ca­tion and train­ing to ben­e­fit from these advance­ments in avi­a­tion to help our state main­tain its lead­er­ship role.”

For more infor­ma­tion

https://www.ecsu.edu/about/visit/ecsu_map_2019.pdf