China’s AG600 amphibious aircraft conducts first take-off from sea
China’s locally built and developed AG600 amphibious aircraft conducted its first take-off from the sea on 26 July, the aircraft’s developer, the Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC), announced that same day via its Weixin social media site.
AVIC said that the 37 m-long aircraft
took off from waters off the coastal Chinese city of Qingdao, in eastern Shandong Province, at 1018 h (local time),
conducted a set of aerial manoeuvres, and completed the test flight 31 minutes later by returning to Rizhao Shanzihe Airport, also in Shandong Province, where it had originally set out from to conduct the test.
The move follows the aircraft’s first waterborne take-off on 20 October from a reservoir near Zhanghe Airport in Jingmen, in China’s central Hubei Province, and its first take-off from land, which took place in December 2017 from Zhuhai in southern Guangdong Province.
The move comes after AVIC was quoted in May 2018 as saying that
the AG600 is expected to be available for delivery to customers by 2022.
“We are endeavouring to get the airworthiness certification from the civil aviation authorities by 2021 and deliver it [the aircraft] to the customers by 2022,”
the aircraft’s chief designer, Huang Lingcai, said at the time without naming any countries as possible customers.