EHang, CAFUC Collaborate “to Develop, Train Skilled Personnel for eVTOL Aircraft”

EHang announced recent­ly it has entered into a col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Civ­il Avi­a­tion Flight Uni­ver­si­ty of Chi­na (CAFUC), reports a press release. 

Employ­ing CAFUC’s exper­tise in civ­il avi­a­tion edu­ca­tion, research and tal­ent devel­op­ment, the two par­ties are to part­ner “on cul­ti­vat­ing skilled per­son­nel, includ­ing oper­a­tors and main­te­nance staff for EHang’s eVTOLs,” explains the release. “This part­ner­ship aims to address the grow­ing demand for jobs in the low-alti­tude econ­o­my (LAE).”

Dur­ing a brief­ing on Octo­ber 8th to China’s State Coun­cil Infor­ma­tion Office, Chun­lin Li, Vice Chair­man of the Nation­al Devel­op­ment and Reform Com­mis­sion (NDRC), high­light­ed the boom­ing LAE and the surg­ing demand for Unmanned Aer­i­al Vehi­cle (UAV) oper­a­tors. Poten­tial­ly, Chi­na faces a tal­ent short­age of up to 1 mil­lion employ­ees in com­ing years.

The CAFUC, a uni­ver­si­ty joint­ly built by the Civ­il Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion of Chi­na (CAAC) and the gov­ern­ment of Sichuan Province, is known as the “Cra­dle of Chi­nese Civ­il Avi­a­tion Pilots.” 

The Tian­fu Cam­pus was opened for stu­dents in March and has a total build­ing area of approx­i­mate­ly 1.1775 mil­lion sq. metres. It has been designed to meet the demand of 30,000 enrolled stu­dents, with 12 research lab­o­ra­to­ries; 6 indus­try train­ing bases; and 1 CAAC High­er Plateau Med­ical Research Cen­tre. It is to become a cra­dle for avi­a­tion tal­ent cul­ti­va­tions as well as a research cen­tre for science/technology insti­tutes.

The CAFUC Uni­ver­si­ty Tian­fu Cam­pus in Sichuan Province (Cred­it: CAFUC)

Qin­gru Tang, VP of CAFUC, com­ment­ed, “We have a com­pre­hen­sive sys­tem to train urgent­ly-need­ed tal­ents in areas such as flight, oper­a­tions, main­te­nance, flight man­age­ment and emer­gency response for the low-alti­tude econ­o­my.” He added, “We will lever­age our edu­ca­tion­al resources and exten­sive teach­ing expe­ri­ence to sup­port EHang.”

Togeth­er, and guid­ed by the CAAC, CAFUC and EHang are to launch a pro­gram for the licence man­age­ment of civ­il UAV oper­a­tors includ­ing train­ing and exam­i­na­tion process­es. The two par­ties will enable grad­u­ates to obtain basic licences for large UAVs and EH216‑S oper­a­tions, ensur­ing a steady tal­ent pipeline. 

Zhao Wang, COO of EHang, remarked, “Our part­ner­ship with CAFUC will focus via the course to improve indus­try aware­ness, pro­fes­sion­al knowl­edge, core skills, safe­ty aware­ness and pol­i­cy under­stand­ing. We aim to devel­op a sys­tem­at­ic, pro­fes­sion­al, and mul­ti-dimen­sion­al tal­ent cul­ti­va­tion pro­gram.”

He con­tin­ued, “EHang is to pro­vide course instruc­tion and tech­ni­cal sup­port for UAVs, and work with the CAFUC to build a robust plat­form for indus­try-aca­d­e­m­ic inte­gra­tion. This will enable us to make suf­fi­cient prepa­ra­tions for the upcom­ing com­mer­cial oper­a­tions of EH216‑S pilot­less pas­sen­ger-car­ry­ing eVTOLs and pro­vide sup­port for the rapid devel­op­ment of Chi­na’s low-alti­tude econ­o­my and the glob­al eVTOL indus­try.”

For more infor­ma­tion

https://www.ehang.com

(Top image: The Sign­ing Cer­e­mo­ny — Cred­it: EHang/CAFUC)

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.