China has tested its largest unmanned cargo aircraft to date – and it can carry a load of 2,000 kilograms.
The plane made its maiden flight on Sunday morning, which lasted about 20 minutes. The flight took place at Fengming General Aviation Airport in southwest China’s Sichuan province, state media CCTV reported.
The new aircraft has a wingspan of 52.8 feet, roughly the width of an Olympic-sized swimming pool.
CCTV wrote in its report that it is “the largest domestically produced large-scale unmanned transport aircraft currently under development in China.”
The new aircraft was developed by the state-funded drone manufacturer Sichuan Tengden Sci-tech Innovation Co and represents a step forward for the country’s “low-altitude economy”. According to the South China Morning Post, this refers to economic activities that take place in an airspace 1.0 kilometers above the earth’s surface.
Drones and flying taxis, collectively known as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), are part of this “low-altitude economy,” which is estimated to be worth $279 billion by 2030, according to Reuters.
As of June this year, there were 1.87 million UAVs registered in China, SCMP reported, citing data from the Civil Aviation Administration of the People’s Republic of China.
The new test of the cargo plane comes as China has already begun commercial drone deliveries.
In April, the SCMP reported that drone company Phoenix Wings had set up a commercial cargo drone route between Shenzhen and Zhongshan in southeast China to speed up the delivery of goods along a 70-kilometer route.
The low-cost delivery service costs $5.60 per order and can be completed within 45 minutes, cutting delivery time by nearly an hour, the outlet reported.
Meanwhile, helicopter taxis are becoming increasingly popular in China. Reuters reported that a manned commercial passenger helicopter made its maiden flight from Kunshun, a city in Jiangsu province, to Shanghai Pudong airport on Saturday. According to the source, the travel time was reduced from several hours to just 20 minutes.
