GALLERY: AutoFlight unveils world’s first five-ton eVTOL aircraft and completes public full transition flight

Aut­oFlight has unveiled Matrix, the world’s first five-ton class eVTOL air­craft, which suc­cess­ful­ly
com­plet­ed a pub­lic full tran­si­tion flight demon­stra­tion at the company’s low-alti­tude flight test facil­i­ty cen­ter.

Dur­ing the demon­stra­tion, Matrix flew along­side AutoFlight’s 2‑ton Car­ryAll car­go eVTOL and com­plet­ed the full mode tran­si­tion flight sequence, tran­si­tion­ing from ver­ti­cal take-off through cruise flight to ver­ti­cal land­ing.

The achieve­ment val­i­dat­ing AutoFlight’s eVTOL tech­nolo­gies across com­plex aero­dy­nam­ic sys­tems, high-pow­er elec­tric propul­sion, and advanced flight con­trol sys­tems, mark­ing the first time a five-ton eVTOL has achieved full tran­si­tion flight.

AutoFlight’s CEO and Founder, Tian Yu said: “Matrix is not only a ris­ing star in the avi­a­tion indus­try but also an ambi­tious indus­try dis­rup­tor. It will break the indus­try per­cep­tion that eVTOL = short-haul, low-load, and will reshape the rules of eVTOL routes.

“Through economies of scale, it sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduces trans­porta­tion costs per seat-kilo­me­ter and ton-kilo­me­ter, rev­o­lu­tion­iz­ing costs and embrac­ing prof­itabil­i­ty. It cov­ers all sce­nar­ios from urban com­mut­ing to inter­ci­ty feed­er routes, dri­ving the expan­sion of the entire low-alti­tude ecosys­tem.”

Tech­ni­cal Spec­i­fi­ca­tions

Matrix fea­tures a 20-metre wingspan, 17.1‑metre length, and 3.3‑metre height, with a max­i­mum take-off weight of 5,700kg. The cab­in mea­sures 5.25m in length, 1.8m in width, and 1.85m in aisle height, pro­vid­ing 13.9m³ of inte­ri­or vol­ume. The air­craft will be avail­able in pas­sen­ger and car­go vari­ants.

The pas­sen­ger ver­sion offers flex­i­ble seat­ing con­fig­u­ra­tions, accom­mo­dat­ing either 10 busi­ness-class seats
or six VIP seats. Stan­dard ameni­ties include pre­mi­um seat­ing, wash­basins, lava­to­ries, cli­mate con­trol, ambi­ent light­ing, and over­sized 1m² win­dows with 50% enhanced light trans­mis­sion.

The car­go vari­ant uses a hybrid pow­er sys­tem, sup­port­ing a max­i­mum pay­load of 1,500kg, and fea­tures a large for­ward-open­ing door capa­ble of accom­mo­dat­ing two AKE stan­dard air car­go con­tain­ers, enhanc­ing oper­a­tional effi­cien­cy for ton-scale car­go trans­port.

Design and Safe­ty Fea­tures

Matrix employs AutoFlight’s com­pound wing Lift and Cruise con­fig­u­ra­tion with a dis­tinc­tive tri­plane lay­out and six-arm struc­ture, ensur­ing aero­dy­nam­ic sta­bil­i­ty through­out all flight phas­es. The aircraft’s high-volt­age archi­tec­ture incor­po­rates up to 20 fifth-gen­er­a­tion lift motors in a dis­trib­uted propul­sion sys­tem, pro­vid­ing
redun­dan­cy to main­tain flight capa­bil­i­ty in sin­gle or dual engine fail­ure sce­nar­ios.

The pure elec­tric ver­sion offers a max­i­mum range of 250km, while the hybrid- elec­tric vari­ant extends range to 1,500km. The platform’s capac­i­ty posi­tions it for diverse appli­ca­tions includ­ing region­al trav­el, heavy logis­tics oper­a­tions, and large-scale emer­gency response mis­sions.

AutoFlight’s Strate­gic Devel­op­ment

Matrix rep­re­sents a con­tin­u­a­tion of AutoFlight’s prod­uct strat­e­gy, fol­low­ing the company’s Great White Shark for indus­tri­al appli­ca­tions, Car­ryAll for autonomous logis­tics, and Pros­per­i­ty for urban air mobil­i­ty.

The devel­op­ment pro­gram builds upon AutoFlight’s accu­mu­lat­ed exper­tise in low-alti­tude flight tech­nol­o­gy, reli­a­bil­i­ty, safe­ty sys­tems and air­wor­thi­ness cer­ti­fi­ca­tion.