The Tianmusun unmanned aerial vehicle, developed by a team that included researchers from Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, successfully completed its maiden flight at a test flight base in April.
After completing all scheduled flight maneuvers, the UAV's recovery parachute deployed smoothly, bringing the aircraft safely to the ground and marking the successful conclusion of its first flight.
The UAV was developed by Liyang Changkong Technology, jointly established in December 2024 by NUAA's UAV Research Institute and the Liyang High-Tech Zone.
According to chief designer Zhang Xueming, developing and flight-testing a target drone of this class typically takes 12 to 18 months. The team, however, set out to halve that timeline and achieved the goal through intensive collaboration and rapid technical refinement.
In just 10 days, the team completed four flight tests, working around the clock to analyze flight data frame by frame, fine-tune flight control parameters and optimize the performance of individual subsystems.
Among the team members is Tang Hao, who is responsible for structural system design. As a NUAA graduate in aircraft design, Tang previously spent seven years at a foreign-invested company before joining Liyang Changkong Technology.
"It was my deep-rooted passion for aviation that prompted me to make this decision," Tang said.
