Country taxis to next frontier of air travel

Aviation Industry Corp of China, the nation's leading aircraft supplier, has designed and built two models of the electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, or eVTOL, and is working on their flight tests, according to a senior AVIC expert.

Wu Ximing, a senior rotorcraft researcher and chief technologist at the State-owned aviation conglomerate, told China Daily in an exclusive interview that testing of the two models — AR-E300 and AR-E3000 — is underway at the China Helicopter Research and Development Institute in Jingdezhen, Jiangxi province, which built the prototypes for both.

"Research and development of the AR-E300 started in the spring of 2023 and progressed smoothly. In September that year, we unveiled the model at the 6th China Helicopter Exposition in Tianjin. In the summer of 2024, we conducted its first flight test in Jingdezhen," Wu said.