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EHang: “CAAC Accepts Autonomous Air Operator Certificate Application, First Batch of Ten EH216‑S Delivered to Xishan Tourism” 

EHang con­tin­ues to release pos­i­tive news and this last week is no dif­fer­ent. First off, is an announce­ment that the Civ­il Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion of Chi­na (CAAC) has for­mal­ly accept­ed the Air Oper­a­tor Cer­tifi­cate (AOC) appli­ca­tions sub­mit­ted by Guang­dong EHang Gen­er­al Avi­a­tion, the company’s sub­sidiary spe­cial­is­ing in UAM oper­a­tion ser­vices along­side Heyi Avi­a­tion, a joint ven­ture com­pa­ny in Hefei, reports a press release. 

The release explains, “This marks the com­mence­ment of the review process for the appli­cants’ busi­ness licence and oper­a­tional qual­i­fi­ca­tion for pilot­less pas­sen­ger-car­ry­ing aer­i­al vehi­cles, with con­sen­sus reached on review pro­ce­dures, sub­jects and frame­works. The CAAC has estab­lished a spe­cialised review team to move for­ward with this.”

It con­tin­ues, “This mile­stone is paving the way for the estab­lish­ment of the world’s first com­mer­cial oper­a­tion stan­dard sys­tem for autonomous pas­sen­ger-car­ry­ing eVTOLs, which will lay a sol­id foun­da­tion for the com­mer­cial oper­a­tion of EHang’s EH216‑S.”

And adds, “In addi­tion to EHang Gen­er­al Avi­a­tion and Heyi Avi­a­tion, EHang’s part­ners in Guangzhou, Shen­zhen, Taiyuan, and Wuxi are also active­ly prepar­ing for AOC appli­ca­tions, with the aim to accel­er­ate the launch of EH216‑S com­mer­cial oper­a­tions and low-alti­tude econ­o­my demon­stra­tion projects in local cities.”

The AOC can­not direct­ly fol­low the exist­ing stan­dards in civ­il avi­a­tion field, but instead, requires inno­va­tion and improve­ment based on cur­rent reg­u­la­tions to estab­lish a new and applic­a­ble stan­dard. 

In March, the CAAC issued a Con­sul­ta­tion Notice on the Appli­ca­tion and Issuance of Oper­a­tor Cer­tifi­cate under the Civ­il Avi­a­tion Reg­u­la­tions Part 92, aim­ing to ensure a smooth imple­men­ta­tion of the Rules on the Safe­ty Man­age­ment of Civ­il Unmanned Air­craft (CCAR-92)

It clar­i­fies the AOC appli­ca­tion pro­ce­dures and require­ments, stan­dard­is­es the scope and key points of oper­a­tional safe­ty assess­ments, and refines oper­a­tional man­age­ment require­ments. This will pro­vide a ref­er­ence basis for the world’s first com­mer­cial oper­a­tion reg­u­la­to­ry sys­tem for autonomous pas­sen­ger-car­ry­ing eVTOLs.

Huazhi Hu

Huazhi Hu, Founder, Chair­man and CEO of EHang, com­ment­ed, “To enter into AOC cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, we are pleased to have received recog­ni­tion from the CAAC and are one step clos­er to real­is­ing our goal of the com­mer­cial oper­a­tion of unmanned pas­sen­ger-car­ry­ing aer­i­al vehi­cles, rep­re­sent­ing the final step for urban air mobil­i­ty to enter the con­sumer mar­ket.” 

He con­tin­ued, “We look for­ward to the issuance of the world’s first com­mer­cial oper­a­tion stan­dard and the first AOC for a pilot­less pas­sen­ger-car­ry­ing eVTOL, which will make the low-alti­tude econ­o­my acces­si­ble to the pub­lic.”

Recent­ly, Song Zhiy­ong, CAAC Admin­is­tra­tor, stat­ed that Chi­na’s low-alti­tude econ­o­my is enter­ing a new phase of rapid growth. The reg­u­la­tor is to pri­ori­tise five key areas of focus includ­ing:-

: Con­struc­tion of unmanned aer­i­al vehi­cle demon­stra­tion zones.

: Devel­op­ment of air­wor­thi­ness cer­ti­fi­ca­tion capa­bil­i­ties.

: Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of AOC, plan­ning and con­struc­tion of air­port facil­i­ties. 

: Estab­lish­ment of a low-alti­tude flight ser­vice sup­port sys­tem.

Atten­dees wit­ness two units of EH216‑S pilot­less eVTOL tak­ing off simul­ta­ne­ous­ly with four pas­sen­gers onboard

The sec­ond announce­ment dur­ing the last week is that EHang has deliv­ered an ini­tial batch of ten EH216‑S eVTOLs to Taiyuan Xis­han Eco­log­i­cal Tourism Invest­ment Con­struc­tion.

Tao Wei, Mem­ber of the Stand­ing Com­mit­tee of Shanxi Provin­cial Com­mit­tee and Sec­re­tary of Taiyuan Munic­i­pal Com­mit­tee, along with oth­er gov­ern­ment offi­cials and lead­ing pub­lic mem­bers, attend­ed the inau­gur­al flight cer­e­mo­ny, seen as a mile­stone for the devel­op­ment of Shanx­i’s low-alti­tude econ­o­my.

The cer­e­mo­ny took place at the Pad­dy Field Park in Taiyuan, where two EH216‑S eVTOL air­craft took off simul­ta­ne­ous­ly with four pas­sen­gers onboard for an aer­i­al view of the fields. The flights show­cased the poten­tial of autonomous eVTOLs in pro­vid­ing aer­i­al sight­see­ing ser­vices in Taiyuan.

Dur­ing the event, EHang also show­cased its VT-30 long-range autonomous pas­sen­ger-car­ry­ing eVTOL; the EH216‑F for fire­fight­ing use; and the EH216‑L for logis­tics, demon­strat­ing the company’s prod­uct range for the low-alti­tude econ­o­my.

Jicheng Yang, Mem­ber of the Stand­ing Com­mit­tee of Taiyuan Munic­i­pal Com­mit­tee and Exec­u­tive Vice May­or, remarked, “The low-alti­tude econ­o­my not only rep­re­sents a new eco­nom­ic force, but has vast devel­op­ment prospects, where appli­ca­tions are con­tin­u­al­ly expand­ing.”

He con­tin­ued, “Taiyuan is a nation­al unmanned aer­i­al vehi­cle test zone that will enhance pol­i­cy sup­port, form essen­tial guar­an­tees and inno­va­tion capa­bil­i­ties, while pro­mot­ing the inte­gra­tion of tech­no­log­i­cal inno­va­tion and the low-alti­tude econ­o­my.”

Tao Wei, Mem­ber of the Stand­ing Com­mit­tee of Shanxi Provin­cial Com­mit­tee and Sec­re­tary of Taiyuan Munic­i­pal Com­mit­tee, dis­cuss­es with Zhao Wang, COO of EHang, air mobil­i­ty solu­tions con­cern­ing the EH216‑S and VT-30 pilot­less eVTOLs

Mean­while, Shanxi is an impor­tant hub for devel­op­ment of the gen­er­al avi­a­tion indus­try, and its Provin­cial Gov­ern­ment issued the Mea­sures to Accel­er­ate the Devel­op­ment of the Low-Alti­tude Econ­o­my and the Con­struc­tion of Gen­er­al Avi­a­tion Demon­stra­tion Province in May. These mea­sures facil­i­tate reg­u­lar low-alti­tude flights, sub­sidise short-range logis­tics and low-alti­tude tourism, and accel­er­ate the devel­op­ment of gen­er­al avi­a­tion infra­struc­ture and oper­a­tional ser­vice capa­bil­i­ties. 

For more infor­ma­tion

www.ehang.com

(Images: EHang)

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