Waterborne maiden flight! tantou technology tests consumer-level low-altitude scenarios

On June 4, NAVEE’s WaveFly 5X consumer-grade manned waterborne flying vehicle under Tantu Technology completed its maiden flight on Suzhou’s East Taihu Lake, marking the official extension of the low-altitude economy into mass-market water-based consumer scenarios.

“The essence of the low-altitude economy is not to pursue breakthroughs in flight altitude, but to achieve the democratization of mobility,” said Lu Jian, President of NAVEE at Tantu Technology. “The birth of WaveFly 5X marks the transition of personal water-surface flight from a professional field to the consumer market, making skimming flight a new option within everyone’s reach.”

Currently, the land-based low-altitude travel products are highly homogenized, and Tantu Technology has chosen to focus on the water surface sector to achieve differentiated development. This aircraft relies on the ground effect principle for water-surface flight, with a flight altitude of only 0.3 to 0.8 meters, ensuring stable operation and low difficulty for users. It can also leverage the air currents above the water surface to reduce energy consumption, with the entire weight controlled at 120 kilograms. Compared to jet skis and waterborne aircraft, it requires less space on the water and offers a superior experience.

According to the relevant classification standards, this product is categorized as a light watercraft, requiring neither a pilot’s license nor complex airworthiness certification, thereby significantly lowering the barrier to entry and addressing key challenges in the commercial deployment of consumer-grade low-altitude equipment.

Leveraging its technological expertise accumulated from existing electric mobility products and a sales network spanning more than 60 countries worldwide, the company is well positioned for rapid deployment. In the initial stage, the product will focus on overseas markets, with priority given to B2B cultural tourism scenarios such as scenic areas, premium resorts, and yacht clubs.

Currently, the scale of China’s low-altitude economy industrial chain continues to expand, but civilian consumer manned flying products remain relatively scarce. Industry insiders believe that low-altitude operations over water face lower regulatory barriers and offer a wide range of application scenarios, making them a promising sub-sector of the low-altitude economy to be among the first to achieve large-scale profitability.