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AutoFlight completes cross-Yangtze River flight in latest milestone with its Prosperity eVTOL aircraft

Aut­oFlight has com­plet­ed an inau­gur­al cross-Yangtze Riv­er flight with its Pros­per­i­ty eVTOL air­craft.

The jour­ney, which took place yes­ter­day (Thurs­day), began at the Nan­jing unmanned aer­i­al vehi­cle (UAV) base in Puk­ou Dis­trict, Nan­jing, where the air­craft took off. It flew over the Yangtze Riv­er — the longest riv­er in Eura­sia and third largest in the world — and cir­cled along the riv­er before return­ing to base.

The flight cov­ered a dis­tance of 25km and the flight took 10 min­utes. It also marked the first cross-Yangtze Riv­er jour­ney by an eVTOL air­craft weigh­ing more than one ton.

As a key trans­porta­tion hub on the Yangtze Riv­er, Nan­jing is one of China’s major eco­nom­ic cen­tres. Despite sev­er­al bridges span­ning the Yangtze Riv­er, the 5.5km straight-line dis­tance between Nan­jing UAV Base and Yuzui Wet­land Park requires a 20km (12.4‑mile) dri­ve which takes 25 min­utes.

But with an eVTOL air­craft, this dis­tance can be cov­ered in just five min­utes, cut­ting trav­el time by 80 per cent.

The city of Nan­jing, which lies 270km (170 miles) west-north­west of Shang­hai, is known for its scenic spots but also traf­fic con­ges­tion. Dur­ing hol­i­days, traf­fic delays around pop­u­lar attrac­tions can make trav­el 10 times slow­er than nor­mal.

Aut­oFlight says the intro­duc­tion of eVTOL air­craft offers a solu­tion which would help ease road con­ges­tion, while pro­vid­ing tourists with aer­i­al views of the his­toric city to enhance both con­ve­nience and the sight­see­ing expe­ri­ence.

Addi­tion­al­ly, despite the pres­ence of 29 cen­tral cities along the Yangtze Riv­er, many areas remain hard to reach. Cross-riv­er flights using eVTOL air­craft would pro­vide an effi­cient and con­ve­nient trav­el solu­tion, trans­form­ing the Yangtze from a nat­ur­al bar­ri­er into a thor­ough­fare.

AutoFlight’s Pros­per­i­ty has a max­i­mum take-off weight of 2,200 kg, and fea­tures a five-seat cab­in design. Its ‘lift and cruise’ wing con­fig­u­ra­tion allows for ver­ti­cal take-off, sim­i­lar to a mul­ti-rotor air­craft or heli­copter.

Once in flight mode, it tran­si­tions to fixed-wing flight for hor­i­zon­tal cruis­ing. With its ver­sa­til­i­ty in take-off and land­ing, effi­cien­cy, con­ve­nience, and envi­ron­men­tal safe­ty, it stands as an ide­al choice for air-taxis.

The eVTOL air­craft will be utilised for point-to-point air trav­el with­in cities and inter­ci­ty areas, with the objec­tive being to ulti­mate­ly offer pric­ing sim­i­lar to ground-based car ser­vices.

Note­wor­thy recent achieve­ments include set­ting world records for sin­gle bat­tery charge flight dis­tances (250.3km/155 miles) and car­ry­ing out a ground-break­ing for­ma­tion flight of three autonomous eVTOL air­craft.

It also com­plet­ed the world’s first inter-city eVTOL air-taxi flight from Shen­zhen to Zhuhai in Feb­ru­ary 2024 and achieved the first long-dis­tance (123-km) flight of a tonne-class eVTOL in the Mid­dle East.

AutoFlight’s Car­ryAll car­go air­craft obtained type cer­ti­fi­ca­tion (TC) in March 2024 from the Civ­il Admin­is­tra­tion Author­i­ty of Chi­na (CAAC). To date, Aut­oFlight has com­plet­ed more than 10,000 eVTOL flights.

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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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