The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) has established a type certification team for EHang’s EH216 “passenger-grade” autonomous electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft. According to EHang, the team met for the first time last week with “the aim to officially advance the [type certificate] approval work” for the autonomous aerial vehicle (AAV). During the two-day meeting, the team began its evaluation of the design features, technical points and safety performance of the EH216 along with visiting EHang’s research and development center.
“The government and companies should work together to promote the development of unmanned aerial vehicles and adhere to high-quality standards when building the civil aviation infrastructure,” said CAAC chief engineer Shijun Yin. “Both the applicant and CAAC should have innovation mindset in the certification process while benchmarking international standards.”
EHang officially submitted the type certificate application for the EH216 in Dec. 2020 and it was accepted by CAAC in Jan. 2021. The two-passenger EH216 AAV has a range of 35 km (19 NM), top speed of 130 km/h (70 knots) and payload of 220 kg (485 pounds). The aircraft completed its first public passenger flights in Vienna, Austria, in April 2019 and has since conducted demo flights in countries including China, the U.S., South Korea, Austria, Netherlands, Qatar and UAE.
Given the usual veracity of ChiCom committee’s, I’ll hold off buying one of these, and you should too.
Why do I get the idea that the Chinese CAA is not exactly an independent committee?