China’s quest to win the cargo drone race has taken another step forward, with the release of the HH-200, a new large cargo drone built by Aviation Industry Corp of China, which the manufacturer says made a successful debut flight yesterday.
In a statement AVIC said the HH-200 prototype took off from an airport in Weinan, Shaanxi province, at 9:35 am and stayed in the air for fifteen minutes before returning to land at the airport.
During the flight test, all aircraft systems functioned normally, the company added. The drone was in good condition and completed all planned maneuvers.
The drone is a 12,2 metre-long and 16.8 metre-wide twin-engine model with a maximum cruising speed of 310 kilometers per hour and a maximum flight range of 2,360 km, and a carrying capacity of up to 1.5 metric tons.
It has a standard inner space of 12 cubic meters available for cargo, which can be expanded to 18 cubic meters. It is the latest freight drone model to have emerged as a result of the nation's flourishing express delivery industry and the government's efforts to make full use of China's low-altitude airspace.
Meng Fantao, technical director of the HH series of cargo drones, said that the HH-200 was designed in accordance with civil aviation standards, featuring intelligent autonomous flight and artificial intelligence-powered obstacle avoidance systems.
It boasts a service life of 50,000 flight hours and 15,000 take-offs and landings, with a full life-cycle operating cost of $0,68 per ton-kilometre — only one-third that of manned aircraft, according to Meng, with the same carrying capacity.
In addition, the HH-200 adopts a user-friendly configuration for loading and unloading. Two operators can complete cargo loading and unloading in just five minutes, he said.
The drone can take off and land on runways as short as 500 meters and at high-altitude airports above 4,200 meters, and can withstand extreme temperatures ranging from freezing cold of -40 C to scorching heat of 50 C.
Meng added that the unmanned transport plane can help deliver goods to mountainous areas, islands, snowy regions and plateaus.
It can also be rapidly reconfigured for other applications including emergency rescue, forest fire fighting, weather modification, aerial remote sensing, and agricultural and forestry plant protection, he added.
And it looks like the drone will have a solid landing too, as Meng says his company has secured a total of 20 orders of intent so far, and will carry out in-depth cooperation with express delivery enterprises to jointly promote the commercial application of the HH series of drones.
In addition to the HH-200, AVIC has designed and tested several other cargo drone models, such as the HH-100 and the TP2000.