China’s indigenous unmanned plateau helicopter makes maiden flight

China’s first homemade unmanned helicopter focussing on high-altitude areas has successfully completed a maiden flight in a plateau region, its manufacturer said on Monday.

The AR-500C prototype completed its first plateau flight at the Daocheng Yading Airport, which is the world’s highest civilian airport with an elevation of 4,411 metres, the state-owned Aviation Industry Corp of China (AVIC) said in a statement.

This flight broke the record for the elevation at which a domestically built unmanned helicopter took off and landed, it said.

During the 15-minute flight, the drone completed a series of tests including climbing, hovering, rotating and other operations manoeuvres, before steadily landing, AVIC said.