China expects to deliver its domestically developed AG600, the world’s largest amphibious aircraft, to customers by 2022, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported late on Sunday citing the plane’s manufacturer. “We are endeavouring to get the airworthiness certification from the civil aviation authorities by 2021, and deliver it to the customers by 2022,” Xinhua quoted Huang Lingcai, the plane’s chief designer at state-owned Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC), as saying. China developed the AG600 as part of a drive to modernise its military, amid a more muscular approach to territorial disputes in places like the South China Sea that has rattled nerves in the Asia-Pacific region and the United States. Huang also said the aircraft would make more flights this year, including its first takeoff from water. In December, state media said that the aircraft had received 17 orders so far from Chinese government departments and Chinese companies.

Source: Hindustan Times May 14, 2018 06:22 UTC