PICTURES: AutoFlight Unveils Water-based Green Vertiport and Debuts World’s First Integrated Sea-Air Mobility Solution

Aut­oFlight Avi­a­tion Tech­nol­o­gy has unveiled what it has described as the world’s first ‘Inte­grat­ed Sea-Air Low-Alti­tude Econ­o­my Solu­tion’, which com­pris­es a zero-car­bon water-based green ver­ti­port (WGV).

The com­pa­ny says the sys­tem would extend eVTOL air­craft infra­struc­ture across vast water areas, address­ing key chal­lenges such as dif­fi­cult site selec­tion, slow deploy­ment and com­plex take-off and land­ing oper­a­tions.

In addi­tion, Aut­oFlight says it sup­ports five major use cas­es: ener­gy plat­form main­te­nance, emer­gency res­cue, high-fre­quen­cy com­mut­ing, marine-aer­i­al tourism,and mobile ver­ti­port clus­ters, paving the way toward a new era of inte­grat­ed land-sea-air trans­port.

A pub­lic demon­stra­tion of the WGV took place on Sat­ur­day (Novem­ber 22nd) at Dian­shan Lake in Kun­shan, a city locat­ed west of Shang­hai in Chi­na. A two-ton-class eVTOL air­craft took off from the ver­ti­port, show­cas­ing the col­lab­o­ra­tive oper­a­tional capa­bil­i­ties of the water-based ver­ti­port and eVTOL under this inno­v­a­tive “water + low-alti­tude” mod­el.

Aut­oFlight also con­duct­ed a mul­ti-air­craft for­ma­tion flight demon­stra­tion, in which three 2‑ton-class eVTOL air­craft flew in for­ma­tion and suc­cess­ful­ly per­formed live air­drop mis­sions. This includ­ed deploy­ing sup­plies and life rafts. The demon­stra­tion ful­ly illus­trat­ed the appli­ca­tion poten­tial of eVTOLs in fields such as emer­gency response and low-alti­tude logis­tics.

AutoFlight’s self-devel­oped, world-first Water-based Green Ver­ti­port serves as a mobile aer­i­al hub and intel­li­gent com­mand cen­ter on water. It inte­grates eVTOL land­ing plat­forms, pho­to­volta­ic ener­gy stor­age and charg­ing sys­tems, an intel­li­gent dis­patch sys­tem, and com­mu­ni­ca­tion facil­i­ties, enabling rapid deploy­ment across rivers, lakes, and seas.

Designed specif­i­cal­ly for eVTOL oper­a­tions, the ver­ti­port is ful­ly elec­tric. Its spa­cious deck serves as a land­ing pad cov­ered with solar pan­els, while the cab­in acts as a depar­ture lounge and tech­ni­cal room. Togeth­er, these com­po­nents form a flex­i­ble, zero-car­bon ver­ti­port that sup­ports take-off, land­ing, and charg­ing for eVTOLs, while also enabling data shar­ing and intel­li­gent coor­di­na­tion with the air­craft.

As the low-alti­tude econ­o­my con­tin­ues to grow, the lim­it­ed avail­abil­i­ty of eVTOL infra­struc­ture remains a bot­tle­neck, with land-based ver­ti­ports often fac­ing lengthy con­struc­tion time­lines. The water-based ver­ti­port is com­pat­i­ble with sev­er­al of AutoFlight’s key eVTOL mod­els, includ­ing the indus­tri­al-grade ‘White Shark’, the two-ton-class car­go air­craft ‘Car­ryAll’, and the six-seat pas­sen­ger mod­el ‘Pros­per­i­ty’.

Syn­er­giz­ing Sea and Air, Reshap­ing Five Key Sec­tors 

Lever­ag­ing the White Shark, Car­ryAll, and Pros­per­i­ty eVTOLs, the Inte­grat­ed Land-Sea-Air solu­tion address­es a vari­ety of sec­toral needs, enhanc­ing oper­a­tional effi­cien­cy and fos­ter­ing syn­er­gy between the low-alti­tude and marine economies:

- Marine Ener­gy Plat­form Main­te­nance: For off­shore oil rigs or wind farm oper­a­tions, the solu­tion improves the trans­port effi­cien­cy of per­son­nel and crit­i­cal spare parts by over ten­fold. 

- Emer­gency Response: By com­bin­ing wide-area search capa­bil­i­ties with rapid eVTOL response, the sys­tem reduces reac­tion time by over 50%, expands search cov­er­age sig­nif­i­cant­ly, increas­es sur­vival rates, and enhances respon­der safe­ty. 

- High-Fre­quen­cy Com­mut­ing: It enables rapid air tran­sit with­in cities, between coastal city clus­ters, across bay areas, and to islands, reduc­ing trav­el time from hours to min­utes. For instance, deploy­ing an eVTOL water ver­ti­port on Shanghai’s Huang­pu Riv­er could facil­i­tate swift, con­ve­nient trav­el from Hongqiao air­port to Luji­azui, Shang­hai’s cen­tral busi­ness dis­trict, with­out dis­rupt­ing exist­ing infra­struc­ture. 

- Marine-Aer­i­al Tourism: Adds a “flight+” dimen­sion to high-end tourism, cre­at­ing a new engine for expe­ri­ence-dri­ven tourism. 

- Mobile Ver­ti­port Clus­ters: Mul­ti­ple mobile water ver­ti­ports can be rapid­ly net­worked with­in a spe­cif­ic water area to form a high-through­put, dis­trib­uted ver­ti­port clus­ter, sup­port­ing large-scale, mul­ti-mis­sion coor­di­nat­ed oper­a­tions for broad­er cov­er­age and smarter appli­ca­tions.

Pio­neer­ing a New Par­a­digm of Zero-Car­bon Inte­grat­ed Land-Sea-Air Trans­port 

Amid a glob­al shift toward sus­tain­able trans­porta­tion, zero-car­bon avi­a­tion has become a crit­i­cal fron­tier. By lever­ag­ing under-uti­lized water sur­faces, AutoFlight’s solu­tion enables coastal and water­side cities world­wide to rapid­ly deploy green avi­a­tion infra­struc­ture, trans­form­ing rivers, lakes and coastal zones into hubs for clean, effi­cient trans­port.