China's newest airship has just hit a major milestone after completing its first extended flight.
According to Interesting Engineering, the AS700 airship recently completed its first-ever long-distance, trans-provincial flight. The airship set a record for Chinese-built craft by traveling nearly 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) in a single trip.
The AS700 was built for longer-range trips. According to Interesting Engineering, it has a range of 700 kilometers (435 miles), can stay airborne for almost 10 hours, and has a max carrying weight of 4,150 kilograms (9,149 pounds). Its capsule is designed to carry 10 people, including the pilot.
However, the airship isn't limited to long-range travel. It's fully capable of making shorter trips, and it does fully vertical takeoffs and landings, making it much more environmentally conscious and low-carbon than a typical aircraft.
The craft was built with tourism in mind, as aerial tours of China's landscape are in high demand. However, according to the Aviation Industry Corporation of China, which manufactured the craft, the AS700 could be used for emergency rescue, geological surveys, and urban security, on top of its designed purpose of aerial touring.
Its record-breaking flight pushed the AS700 to its limits. Apart from stretching its range by a full 300 kilometers (186.4 miles), the 12-hour, 44-minute trip was beyond the recommended range by nearly three hours.
Chinese reporter Li Zexin captured a video of the airship in flight.
CHINA's home-made "Kirov Airship" AS700 in demo flight pic.twitter.com/vb13dy0RkP
— Li Zexin (@XH_Lee23) August 2, 2024
These sorts of low-altitude, low-fuel airships are crucial to China's efforts to greenify its economy. According to Interesting Engineering, low-altitude travel accounted for $70.1 billion of China's economy in 2023, and that number is expected to quadruple by 2030. Likewise, some experts are concerned the country's aviation gas pollution could quadruple by 2050, further contributing to the trapping of heat in the planet's atmosphere.
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This isn't the only major innovation in aircraft recently. The U.S. Air Force completed a test flight of its fully electric aircraft, while a German company has developed a shark skin-like technology to improve the efficiency of planes.
The next step for the AS700 is testing for passenger comfort to make sure it's fully ready for commercial use, but if things proceed as planned, the AS700 could revolutionize low-altitude travel in China and help the country make a big leap toward reducing its output of planet-warming gases.
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