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EHang confirms first order for its VT-30 eVTOL aircraft and announces further demo flights in Japan

EHang has secured the first order for its long-range pas­sen­ger grade VT-30 eVTOL air­craft and will work with local part­ners to fur­ther explore use cas­es with its EH216 and VT-30 and devel­op urban air mobil­i­ty net­works in Japan.

With the coop­er­a­tion and sup­port of the Okaya­ma Kurashi­ki Mizushi­ma Aero and Space Indus­try Clus­ter Study Group (MASC), EHang’s dual-seat AAV EH216 has com­plet­ed demon­stra­tion flights in Fukushi­ma and Okaya­ma after its flight debut in June this year.

This fur­ther explored the appli­ca­tion and prac­tice of AAV solu­tions in use cas­es such as cross-island trav­el, emer­gency res­cue and aer­i­al logis­tics.

The EH216 suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ed a flight demon­stra­tion for emer­gency res­cue sce­nar­ios in the extreme weath­er with strong winds up to 27.5m/s at the Fukushi­ma Robot Test Field (RTF).

In 2019, Pub­lic-Pri­vate Coun­cil for Air Trans­porta­tion Rev­o­lu­tion in Japan posi­tioned the Fukushi­ma RTF as a fixed site for test flights, prepar­ing for the goal of achiev­ing com­mer­cial appli­ca­tions of eVTOLs in 2023. 

Nar­i­sawa Koichi, the Coun­selor of Civ­il Avi­a­tion Bureau at Min­istry of Land, Infra­struc­ture, Trans­port and Tourism (MLIT) of Japan, said it will for­mu­late and pub­lish new flight test guide­lines to sup­port the exper­i­men­tal tests of enter­pris­es such as EHang.

He added: “The AAVs have always been expect­ed to be used in the sce­nar­ios of trav­el on out­ly­ing islands and sparse­ly pop­u­lat­ed areas, life res­cue and mate­r­i­al sup­port in dis­as­ters. I also per­son­al­ly feel the efforts made by enter­pris­es in var­i­ous indus­tries like EHang to achieve this goal.”

EHang’s 216 car­ried a 60kg load at Kasao­ka Air Sta­tion in Okaya­ma today (Thurs­day) to com­plete the flight demon­stra­tion. The com­pa­ny will work with part­ners to con­tin­u­ous­ly explore the AAV use cas­es in the Setouchi Area, such as island trav­el and aer­i­al logis­tics.

Hashimo­to Gaku, a mem­ber of the Japan House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, said: “In the near future, the EHang’s AAV will make a leap in the prac­ti­cal field of Japan. I look for­ward to this day com­ing soon.”

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Jason Pritchard

Jason Pritchard is the Editor of eVTOL Insights. He holds a BA from Leicester's De Montfort University and has worked in Journalism and Public Relations for more than a decade. Outside of work, Jason enjoys playing and watching football and golf. He also has a keen interest in Ancient Egypt.

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