Manta Aircraft, Shenyang Aviation Collaborate “to Accelerate Development of Hybrid-Electric eV/STOL ANN Plus Aircraft” 

Man­ta Air­craft and Shenyang Avi­a­tion Indus­tries Group announced this week a col­lab­o­ra­tion to accel­er­ate the devel­op­ment of Manta’s Hybrid-Elec­tric eV/STOL ANN Plus Air­craft, reports a press release.

The release explains, “The ANN Plus is a mul­ti­pur­pose, six-seater air vehi­cle offer­ing com­fort­able space for 1 pilot and 5 pas­sen­gers — for per­son­al mobil­i­ty, busi­ness trav­el, spe­cial and car­go trans­port oper­a­tions. Com­bin­ing heli­copter ver­sa­til­i­ty with air­plane effi­cien­cy, this air­craft sup­ports both Ver­ti­cal and Short Take­off and Land­ing (eV/STOL), enabling oper­a­tions any­where, from air­ports to heli­pads to unpre­pared remote areas.”

It con­tin­ues, “With a range of 300 km for VTOL oper­a­tion and up to 1,000 km using a short airstrip for STOL oper­a­tion, it offers unmatched mis­sion flex­i­bil­i­ty, regard­less of infra­struc­ture. Its large radius allows extend­ed mis­sions with­out refu­elling, while bat­ter­ies are recharged in flight, mak­ing it ide­al for sce­nar­ios like out­back, off­shore and inter-region­al oper­a­tions. Per­fect for both urban and remote loca­tions, it deliv­ers supe­ri­or per­for­mance with min­i­mal reliance on ground sup­port.”

Adding, “The solu­tion of the hybrid propul­sion sys­tem, cou­pled with four opti­mised duct­ed fans for hov­er­ing and four for cruis­ing, offers the longest range in the eVTOL seg­ment, with high cruis­ing speed.”

Man­ta Air­craft Con­tin­ues its Lead­er­ship Path in the AAM Indus­try

The sign­ing of the part­ner­ship occurred on Sat­ur­day (Octo­ber 26th), at a spe­cial cer­e­mo­ny in Shenyang, joint­ly host­ed by the Shenyang Avi­a­tion Indus­try Group and Baod­ing Kai­borui Tech­nol­o­gy Co. Ltd.

The pro­gram cap­i­talis­es on China’s increas­ing eco­nom­ic focus on its Low Alti­tude Econ­o­my, which is prepar­ing to inte­grate eVTOL oper­a­tions via reg­u­la­to­ry reforms, air­space man­age­ment and the for­ma­tion of des­ig­nat­ed tri­al project areas.

The Man­ta pro­pri­etary tech­ni­cal cal­cu­la­tion tools derive from a com­bined 60 years of expe­ri­ence in air­plane and heli­copter design, applied to 20+ cer­ti­fied air­craft. Graphs for the ANN Plus pay­load-range capa­bil­i­ty, with a ver­ti­cal take-off and with a rolled take off from a 270m semi-pre­pared strip, esti­mat­ed at dif­fer­ent ambi­ent tem­per­a­tures, up to ISA+30°, are below.

The col­lab­o­ra­tion will lead to shared R&D; pro­duc­tion tech­nol­o­gy for 2 full-scale pro­to­types; cer­ti­fi­ca­tion with the Civ­il Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion of Chi­na (CAAC); fol­lowed by com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion. Regions cov­ered are to include the Chi­nese and South Asian mar­kets, not only for mar­ket­ing activ­i­ty, but also for Main­te­nance, Repair and Oper­a­tions (MRO) ser­vices.

A full-scale mock-up of the “ANN Plus” Air­craft will be unveiled at this year’s Chi­na Air­show in Zhuhai (Novem­ber 12th to 17th). Details of the joint pro­gram will be pre­sent­ed dur­ing the event.

For more infor­ma­tion

https://www.mantaaircraft.com

https://www.cccme.cn/shop/cccme5008/index.aspx

(Images: Man­ta)

For the lat­est news, insights and con­tent regard­ing the glob­al Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty mar­ket, please join the fol­low­ing eVTOL Insights chan­nels: What­sApp, Face­book, Insta­gram, Spo­ti­fy, Apple Pod­casts, YouTube, X and LinkedIn.