- Six low-altitude economy breakthroughs debuted in Hangzhou
- New systems aim to cut freight drone costs and extend flight endurance
Hangzhou’s Tianmushan Laboratory unveiled six major low-altitude economy research achievements on May 10 in the city’s Yuhang District, including a new heavy-lift hybrid cargo drone and upgraded hydrogen-powered aircraft systems.
The centerpiece was the AL-100, which the lab said is the world’s first 1-ton hybrid cargo drone, officially unveiled under the “Tianmushan 3” program.
The lab also introduced an upgraded version of its record-setting “Tianmushan 1,” now equipped with a new hydrogen power system.
The AL-100 is designed to significantly lower logistics costs, with operating expenses estimated at 2 yuan ($0.3) per ton-kilometer. Ton-kilometer is a measure of freight transport output.
This aircraft also comes at a price of about 2 million yuan, compared with 5-10 million yuan for most comparable eVTOL models.
It also outperforms domestic and international peers in payload, range, and cost metrics, according to project data, although the lab did not specify.
The upgraded hydrogen system increases energy density to five to six times that of lithium batteries, extending flight endurance from tens of minutes to three to four hours.
Four additional technologies were also released: the Tianmushan 6 heavy-lift unmanned helicopter, the Tianmushan 11 control system for light manned eVTOLs, the Tianmushan 13 high-lift multi-rotor drone, and the TMS800 turbofan engine.
The TMS800 is reportedly China’s first 800-kilogram-class dual-spool small turbofan engine, filling a domestic gap in engines below 1,000 kilograms of thrust.
All six technologies have been deployed in Yuhang’s Pingyao town, where local authorities are working with Tianmushan Lab and Beihang University’s Hangzhou campus to build a low-altitude innovation cluster.
Beihang ranks among China’s leading academic institutions and plays a central role in the aviation industry’s research and talent pipelines.
More than 10 spin-off commercialization projects from Beihang research have already launched in Pingyao, turning the town into an emerging hub for moving low-altitude technologies from lab research into industrial applications.
