Report by : Gan Yung Chyan, KUCINTA SETIA
On 16 November 2020, the drone taxi known as the "flying car" held a test flight in Shoucheng District, Daegu. This "drone taxi" is the same aircraft that carried 80 kilograms of rice in the center of Seoul on 11 November.
The event jointly held by Daegu and Suseong is part of the K-UAM (K-Urban Air Mobility) plan released by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport of Korea in June this year. At that time, Daegu, Seoul and Jeju won the bid and were selected as the pilot cities for the project.
Although the relevant departments have started to control the event site the day before, after hearing the news of the public test flight, many people still came to the area around Suseong Pond hoping to see the "air taxi". In the afternoon of the same day, the aircraft (Ehang216) produced by China Ehang Company just appeared in Shanghua Dongshan, Shoucheng District, and it aroused the cheers of the people.
From a safety point of view, the test flight was not manned, but was equipped with rescue equipment such as an 80 kg 119 fire emergency kit and a pacemaker. After the aircraft took off, nearby citizens picked up their phones to take pictures. Finally, the UAV successfully landed after flying 2 kilometers at a speed of 10 meters per second in the air at a height of 30 meters, which took 7 minutes.
During the test flight on the Han River, the two wheels of the drone made a large circle in the air and then successfully turned. During the test flight of Suseong Pond, the UAV first flew west for a certain distance, then turned east, and finally flew west, completing the round-trip test flight. This kind of steering method that cannot be achieved by helicopters and ordinary airplanes can only be presented by "drone taxis", which won warm applause from the audience.
As a side event, a large-scale drone stage entertainment performance combined with a drone light show and a drone art performance presented by 200 drones were also held that night. Based on this test flight and Suseong Pond, Shoucheng District plans to develop more test flight routes in phases, and vigorously promote the industrialization of urban air transportation (UAM).
