outlook｜sichuan: forming a 7,800 square kilometer low-altitude flight network
2024-09-19
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in the pilot airspace of collaborative management, you can fly as long as you report one hour in advance, which basically enables you to fly whenever you want. this solves the pain points of difficulty in finding test flight sites and applying for airspace, and promotes the rapid development of industrial drones.
sichuan province proposed to change the isolated operation mode based on user qualifications to form a new integrated operation mode for all users in a larger low-altitude airspace.
text | xie jiao, a reporter from outlook news weekly
on july 20, a flash flood disaster occurred in hanyuan county, sichuan province, resulting in loss of contact with people, damaged roads, and interrupted communications. at this critical moment, the wing loong-2h emergency rescue drone was dispatched continuously from zigong lantian airport, transmitting real-time data and high-definition images of the disaster area from the air to the command hall of the emergency department. at the same time, the mobile phone signals provided by the wing loong-2h were also transmitted to the mobile phones of the villagers and the rescue team, covering 2,700 square kilometers, providing key support for emergency rescue.
this is a microcosm of the rapid development of industrial drones in my country. in many scenes such as earthquake relief and fire fighting, industrial drones have shown their prowess, and can be used for observation and mapping, communication guarantee, artificial rainfall... taking stock of the development trajectory of industrial drones in my country, sichuan is an important cornerstone. not only have leading industrial drone companies such as avic drone and tengdun technology emerged, but also a complete industrial drone industry chain has been formed and strengthened.
what did sichuan do right?
changed from "based on qualifications" to "based on rules". "within the pilot airspace under collaborative management, you can fly as long as you report one hour in advance, which basically enables you to fly whenever you want. this solves the pain points of difficulty in finding test flight sites and applying for airspace, and promotes the rapid development of industrial drones." a relevant person in charge of sichuan tengdun science and technology co., ltd. explained the reason.
since being approved to carry out a pilot program for coordinated management of low-altitude airspace in 2017, sichuan has continuously explored new models of airspace operation management, revitalized low-altitude airspace resources, laid the airspace foundation necessary for the development of low-altitude economy, and made useful explorations for the development of my country's low-altitude economy.
the third batch of low-altitude coordinated management airspace in sichuan was officially put into use. the picture shows a helicopter preparing to land at huaizhou airport in jintang county, chengdu (photo taken on december 24, 2023) photo by wang xi/this magazine
highlight the public attributes of the “pilot airspace”
while "cultivating low-altitude economic scenarios" has become a hot topic in various places, a drone company in a central province told the reporter of outlook news weekly: "the company cannot find a suitable test flight site in the province. if it goes to the northwest for test flights, it often has to queue for one or two weeks just to test fly for one hour."
the inability to fly and the inability to fly smoothly have troubled the implementation of the low-altitude economy. this is also a pain point and bottleneck in the operation of low-altitude airspace in china.
according to the relevant institutions of the pilot project of low-altitude airspace collaborative management in sichuan province, my country's airspace management adopts the mode of "isolated operation with global user attributes". the low-altitude airspace is divided and corresponds to each user unit, and static deployment and isolated operation are adopted according to the priority level.
in layman's terms, the temporary flight airspace is "whoever obtains the application is eligible to fly", "one application per flight", and "cancelled after the flight". this model is obviously exclusive and has low utilization efficiency; it involves many departments, declaration procedures, and coordination links in operation. with the rapid growth of my country's aviation scale, especially the rapid development of drones, this model is difficult to adapt to new changes.
how to break the impasse? sichuan province proposed to change the isolated operation mode based on user qualifications and form a new integrated operation mode for all users in a larger range of low-altitude airspace.
"it's like a highway. do you have to apply for a driving license every time you drive? is only one car allowed on a road? as long as everyone obtains a driver's license and a vehicle registration certificate in accordance with traffic regulations, you can drive on the road. only in this way can you achieve the same efficiency improvement as a highway." cao kun, person in charge of the low-altitude airspace collaborative management pilot in sichuan province, made a vivid analogy.
this idea has been recognized by relevant departments. on december 23, 2017, the former national air traffic control committee approved sichuan province to carry out a pilot project of coordinated management of low-altitude airspace. under the authorization of the chengdu air traffic control coordination committee, the sichuan provincial people's government will work with relevant military and civil aviation control departments to organize and implement the overall allocation, operation management and service guarantee of sichuan province's low-altitude airspace resources.
in december 2018, the sichuan low-altitude airspace coordinated operation center was established to be responsible for the operation and management of sichuan's low-altitude coordinated airspace, providing aviation intelligence services, meteorological services, flight information services and warning services for general aviation flights. the pilot mechanism led the demarcation of the first batch of pilot airspaces, officially realizing the first safe flight of the new mechanism, and opening the curtain for the reform of my country's low-altitude airspace coordinated operation.
the pilot mechanism creatively proposed collaborative management of airspace, including fixed airspace and low-altitude visual channels. under normal circumstances, fixed airspace is open to users who comply with these regulations around the clock. the responsible entity of fixed airspace assumes the responsibility for flight organization and management, reports to the collaborative operation center one hour before the start of flight in this airspace, confirms relevant airspace restriction information, and promptly informs the collaborative operation center after the flight. thus, "application for flight" is changed to "report flight", and the lead time is compressed from at least 7 days to 1 hour.
in response to the needs of low-altitude manned aircraft users to move from one point to another, the pilot mechanism adopts a low-altitude visual channel mechanism, which is open during the day. it changes "instrument flight" to "autonomous visual flight."
as a result, the pilot airspace was opened as "public airspace" for the first time in my country to all users who met the conditions and were bound by unified rules, and it was gradually expanded from small to large and continuously improved.
as of now, sichuan province’s pilot airspace has expanded to more than 7,800 square kilometers, including 7 fixed airspaces and 8 low-altitude channels, forming a low-altitude flight network around chengdu and connecting southern and northern sichuan, successfully creating the basic conditions for test flights for domestic drone companies to quickly iterate.
significantly improve airspace operation efficiency
the pilot project of low-altitude airspace collaborative management in sichuan has greatly improved the efficiency of airspace use. the pilot airspace, as the most important means of production for the low-altitude economy, is open to producers, igniting the entrepreneurial passion of drone companies and general aviation companies across the country.
on the edge of the longmen mountains in pengzhou, chengdu, drones can be seen flying up and down in the sky above the cliff from time to time, and various precision instruments are automatically recording.
in the past three months, foreign businessmen from four countries have visited shenzhen naijie's chengdu r&d site more than ten times. there are more than 20 r&d and testing sites like naijie in the village, and each hilltop is a complete set of modern flight verification and test space.
last year, the pengzhou base obtained the national license for the "national civil unmanned aerial vehicle test base" and was approved for dedicated airspace for drone testing and flight trials.
zhou xiaoming, the head of the pengzhou base, said that more than 100 drone-related companies have entered the public airspace with an altitude of less than 1,200 meters and a radius of 5 kilometers to carry out research and development and testing. there is no need for time and space isolation between aircraft. "you can fly whenever you want, just report before flying." according to statistics, since the first pilot flight, all types of aircraft in the sichuan pilot airspace have safely flown more than 770,000 times and 230,000 hours, ranking first in china and leading by a large margin.
at present, the pilot airspace of more than 7,800 square kilometers has become a large-scale engine for the research and development, test flights, and operations of uavs in sichuan, achieving the goal of promoting research, production, and use through flight.
taking chengdu, the center of aircraft manufacturing, as an example, the scale of chengdu's industrial drone industry has maintained an average annual growth rate of more than 20% in recent years, and the revenue of chengdu's industrial drone industry chain will exceed 10 billion yuan in 2023. at present, chengdu has gathered more than 100 drone companies, basically forming a complete "r&d + manufacturing + operation + service" industry chain. geely wofei changkong, which has attracted market attention for its electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft evtol project, has settled its global headquarters and production and manufacturing base project in chengdu hi-tech zone.
in addition to drones, manned aircraft have also opened up a new track for consumer flights. at the qingchengshan airport in the pilot "sichuan association no. 1" airspace, people can choose to take a helicopter to enjoy the dujiangyan and qingchengshan scenic areas from the air; they can choose to receive training from professional institutions and obtain a pilot's license; they can also open a parachute in the air and feel the charm of skydiving.
xie yugang, person in charge of qingchengshan general aviation airport, said: "now we can guarantee various flight activities according to the needs of different flight missions, eliminating the waiting time for flight approval and flying at any time. with the better experience, we have established a good reputation for low-altitude flight and extreme aerial sports in the country." according to statistics, the number of consumer flights in sichuan province has increased year by year, with a total of 149,000 flights and 27,700 hours, with a direct output value of more than 100 million yuan.
in guanghan, xinjin, mianyang and other places in sichuan, the training aircraft of the civil aviation flight university of china are constantly taking off. the academy is known as the cradle of civil aviation talents in my country. it is responsible for the training of talents in all flight categories, including flight, engineering technology and civil aviation operation management. the relevant person in charge of the academy said that the pilot airspace is of great significance to ensuring the stable and continuous low-altitude training flights and the training of talents in all flight categories in my country. in addition, around the aviation industry, universities such as the civil aviation flight university of china, the university of electronic science and technology of china, and sichuan university have continuously opened technical advantage disciplines.
"thanks to the coordinated management of the provincial government, the military and civil aviation, and provincial departments, a high-level command platform has been formed, which has greatly formed a joint force of leading by example, with outstanding coordination capabilities. at the provincial level, it has coordinated well with the industrial bases of aircraft research and development and manufacturing such as aviation industry corporation of china chengdu aircraft design and research institute, university of electronic science and technology of china, and xihua university." many industry interviewees gave such an evaluation.
practice has proven that wherever the endogenous driving force of low-altitude economic operation can be followed, there will be a boom in low-altitude economic development. and "airspace operation efficiency" is the key variable in this series of "chemical reactions".
continuous system supply solves collaborative management problems
the booming development of the low-altitude economy has created a more urgent need for more precise airspace classification management, formulation and implementation of operating rules. sichuan is continuing to innovate its system supply to solve various problems in development.
in response to the complexity of airspace management, the zigong flight test base has achieved the safe integration of low-altitude visual flight of manned aircraft and flight of unmanned aircraft by exploring the co-flight mechanism of manned and unmanned aircraft. the civil aviation flight university of china and zigong jointly established the "joint laboratory for safe operation of regional logistics uavs" to start relevant scientific research tasks.
at present, my country is steadily advancing the airworthiness certification of traditional manned aircraft. under the guidance of the southwest regional administration of the civil aviation administration of china, a number of base enterprises and scientific research institutions jointly initiated the construction of the jianjiang laboratory at the pengzhou flight test base to promote the efficient development of uav airworthiness capacity building, standard system exploration, scientific research, talent training, and achievement transformation.
the utilization of urban low-altitude airspace resources is currently the most controversial low-altitude application area, but also the one with the broadest prospects.
sichuan is actively planning urban flight research and introducing relevant research results on low-altitude intelligent networks. through the planning of low-altitude infrastructure such as low-altitude communications, flight navigation, and airspace supervision, it explores the expected order of drone use scenarios based on the entire city, laying the groundwork for the formulation of relevant rules.
a series of forward-looking plans have provided a preliminary blueprint for the path of future large-scale airspace operations, allowing the industry to see real prospects for flight applications, thereby giving rise to more research and development directions.
"the development of new productivity will inevitably require the transformation of production materials and the innovation of production relations. we will adhere to the reform direction based on system supply, and continue to explore effective low-altitude operation systems that adapt to the development of new productivity, and help the low-altitude economy take off." cao kun said that the prospects for the development of sichuan's low-altitude economy are worth looking forward to. ■
