The USA’s Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has granted an airworthiness Type Certificate (TC) to the latest iteration of Chinese Y12 regional turboprop aircraft.

The Y12 new-generation general-purpose aircraft, developed by AVIC Harbin Aircraft Industry Group Co, is the first Chinese civil aircraft series to obtain the TCs of countries like US, UK and Russia, etc. More than 200 Y12 series aircraft have been delivered and are flying in 30 countries and regions. This is the third FAA TC for the Y12 series following the former two granted to Y12IV and Y12E aircraft.

It is designed for a wide of applications, such as passenger/cargo transportation, maritime surveillance, air dropping and parachute jumping, aerial photographing, geological exploration, medical care and rescue, and cloud seeding, etc.

The latest Y12F version has a maximum takeoff weight of 8.4 tons, a maximum payload of 3 tons, an economic cruise speed of 400 km/h, a full-tanks range of 2255 km, the maximum service ceiling of 7000 m, and with the capacity of 19 passengers or 3 LD3 containers.

AVIC says that, compared with the competitors of the same category worldwide, the Y12F has obvious advantages in the performance and efficiency, mainly reflected by a bigger cabin volume, a higher payload and speed, a longer range, an excellent high altitude performance, and particularly by a bigger carrying capacity (“ton-km/hour” index) which is 1.3 to 2 times of that of the competitors.