Mile city: Low altitude economy spreads its wings

Walking into the Dongfeng Airport in Mile City, south Yunnan’s Honghe Hani and Yi autonomous prefecture, flight instructor Jin Chengxiang from Boyue (Yunnan) General Aviation Co., Ltd. was piloting an aircraft for flight training tasks. Following instructions from the control center, he then smoothly landed the aircraft on the airport runway.

The Dongfeng Airport is one of the first batch of 20 Class I general airports planned and constructed during the “13th Five-Year Plan” period in Yunnan province. It is the third general airport in Yunnan and the first one in Honghe. On July 15, 2021, Dongfeng Airport was officially opened for traffic. By the end of June this year, the airport has seen a total of 9,806 flights conducted, ranking first in-flight volume and passenger flow among all general airports in the province.

Low-altitude economy is an important component of the new quality productive forces. In recent years, Mile has developed its low-altitude economy according to local conditions, becoming one of the few regions in Yunnan with the capability of developing and manufacturing general aviation aircraft and drones. Riding on the development of the low-altitude economy, the city actively explores diversified application scenarios of “low-altitude plus,” opening up new paths for economic growth.

“Low-altitude plus tourism” is an important step for Mile to explore its low-altitude economy, which is accelerating the transformation and upgrading of the tourism industry. According to Chen Guanpeng, a staff member at Mile Dongfeng Airport, currently, four general aviation companies have built temporary landing sites for general aviation aircraft and established schools for flight license training.

They also conducted flight training, skydiving, flight experiences, aerial photography, aviation popular science research and other related businesses, enriching the development scenarios of new formats such as low-altitude tourism and low-altitude study tours.

In May this year, Mile city and Xi’an Aerospace Investment Co., Ltd. signed a strategic cooperation agreement to take the integration of low-altitude plus culture and tourism, unmanned aerial vehicle training and application as a breakthrough, and jointly set up Yunnan Low-altitude Economic Industrial Park, to build Mile as a national pilot of the application of low-altitude economy, culture and tourism integration scenarios.

Taking scenic spots and attractions as the entry point, the industrial park prioritizes the layout of eVTOL drones in tourist scenic spots and attractions such as Dongfengyun Art Town, and Taiping Lake Forest Town.

In the meantime, the Park plans to carry out drone competitions and youth study activities, build a drone industry college, and open vocational skills programs such as drone pilot, drone assembly and maintenance worker, drone mapping operator and so on.

The Park will also set up vocational skills training and appraisal for “drone pilot”, “drone installer and repairer” and “drone mapping operator”, enriching various application scenarios according to local conditions.

With the momentum of low-altitude economic development and the wisdom of experts, Mile will make every effort to build a nationally renowned “model aircraft (drone) test flight base” and “Fly and Enjoy Mile” low-altitude culture and tourism fusion brand, injecting new vitality into the high-quality development of its economy.

Reporting by Zhang Min