China's largest domestic unmanned transport aircraft completes maiden flight

China's homegrown large twin-engine unmanned transport aircraft completed its maiden flight test on Sunday in Zigong, Southwest China's Sichuan Province, China Media Group reported.

This milestone came amid China's ambitious strides in advancing its low-altitude economy, reflecting progress in the rapidly expanding sector, which analysts said is driven by strong policy support and growing technological innovation.

This unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) features a wingspan of 16.1 meters and a height of 4.6 meters, with a payload capability of up to 2 tons, making it the largest fully domestically produced unmanned transport aircraft in China, tailored to meet growing market demand.

The 20-minute flight test at Zigong Fengming Airport demonstrated that the aircraft's systems operated as expected, according to the report.

The UAV is designed with features such as convenient loading and unloading, high-level safety and intelligence, and it's expected to expand new application scenarios for cargo transport and facilitate intelligent low-altitude advancement.

This new test followed the successful trial flight of a ton-class electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, which crossed the Yangtze River on August 1, adding to the sector's recent series of breakthroughs.

China is rapidly advancing its low-altitude sector, identified as a key future-oriented industry and a new growth engine in the 2024 Government Work Report. Recent central government reforms to the integrated transportation system also emphasize efforts to further develop this sector.

Observers said that this new development signified China's aerospace technological leap and emphasis on high-quality growth via intelligent logistics and low-altitude operations.

In 2023, China's low-altitude economy grew by 33.8 percent to 505.95 billion yuan ($70.59 billion). In the first half of this year, nearly 608,000 new drones were registered, and more than 14,000 drone operators held valid civil aviation certificates, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

The scale of China's low-altitude economy is expected to exceed 1 trillion yuan by 2026, according to a report released by the China Center for Information Industry Development on April 1.