On April 18, 2024, Hongpeng Airlines and Zhuhai Dahengqin Group signed an agreement at the Zhuhai economic and trade event held in Munich, Germany. Through equity investment and industrial development cooperation, Hongpeng Airlines will establish an aircraft engine final assembly and maintenance factory in Zhuhai with EASA airworthiness certification. Leaders from Zhuhai city, the Chinese Consulate General in Munich, and representatives from well-known German enterprises were present to witness the signing.
In the current landscape of policy and capital inflows driving the rapid development of the low-altitude economy, Hongpeng Airlines holds a professional and distinct viewpoint: China's current aircraft products are insufficient to support the trillion-dollar blueprint of the low-altitude economy, with the core bottleneck being aviation engines. Hongpeng Aviation's three aviation engine products - the 600kW turboprop, 160kW piston, and 300kW turbine-electric hybrid - form a multi-level product system that can effectively meet the power demand of the low-altitude economy for the next 30 years. By focusing on "airworthiness standards" and "low cost," they address the power bottleneck and promote industry upgrading.
Hongpeng Aviation's D160 series heavy oil piston engine boasts outstanding user flight records, with accumulated flight time exceeding 20,000 hours, making it suitable for demanding and long-duration missions. This engine, with a power of 160kW/205 horsepower, can support long-distance flights of unmanned aircraft weighing 1.5-3 tons for 1000-2000 kilometers. The common rail fuel system for diesel/heavy oil and the manufacturing and supply chain system derived from automotive engines effectively reduce engine manufacturing and operating costs, thereby enhancing the cost competitiveness of the flight platform and demonstrating excellent competitiveness in the field of regional aviation logistics transportation. As the only piston aviation engine in Asia to pass EASA airworthiness certification, the outstanding performance of the D160 will effectively address the power bottleneck of China's low-altitude economy.
By partnering with Dahengqin Group, Hongpeng Aviation will receive comprehensive support from Zhuhai City in terms of equity investment, industrial supporting facilities, and policy. It plans to complete the assembly and maintenance line of heavy oil piston engines in the third quarter and achieve production and delivery in the same year, rapidly forming a delivery capacity of 500 units per year. In the future, the two parties will continue to deepen and broaden their cooperation, with low-cost aviation engines meeting airworthiness standards as the overall traction, deeply cultivating the low-altitude economic industry chain, and attracting competitive industrial players to continuously settle in Zhuhai.
