World's largest 'transport drone' successfully tested by Chinese company
- Oct. 18th 2018 9:40 am ET
Maybe they should have called this the world largest 'transport unmanned aircraft' instead of 'transport drone'. The aircraft was developed by the China Academy of Aerospace Electronics Technology and SF Express Co. Ltd., China's biggest delivery service company. It's a Feihong-98 piston-driven autonomous biplane that had its first successful public flight on Oct. 16. Earlier this year we reported SF Express received a government license to operate drones, opening up the possibility for parcel deliveries by drone.
Largest transport drone
Bonnie Zhang reports for PanDaily:
Feihong-98 is converted from Y-5B, China's first homegrown transport aircraft based on Russia's Antonov An-2. It has a maximum takeoff weight of 5.25 tons, top payload of 1.5 tons, and a volume space of 15 cubic meters. It can reach a max flight altitude of 4500 meters and a max speed of 180 km/h.
Due to its ability to take off with minimal running distance, large load capacity, and high performance-cost ratio, Y-5B aircrafts are considered one of the most suitable models to be used as cargo carriers.
SF Express and China Aerospace Times Electronics signed a strategic cooperation agreement in August of 2017, planning to collaborate on research and development on large-scale unmanned delivery aircrafts. It took a record-breaking eight months for the team to apply the technologies and complete the research and development core technologies.
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