Pham Gia Vinh, who has made a flying machine, has successfully approached near-space at the height of 23 kilometers and is now prepared for a flight at the height of 30 kilometers.
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Pham Gia Vinh, who has made a flying machine, has successfully approached near-space at the height of 23 kilometers and is now prepared for a flight at the height of 30 kilometers.
However, the 32-year-old is little known as the director of Dong Giang Vietnam Research & Development, one of the few companies making unmanned aircraft in Vietnam.
He has devoted himself to the work since he returned to Vietnam after graduating from a polytechnic school in Rennes, France.
Vinh’s first products were automatic and semi-automatic unmanned aircrafts, M94 and M96, used in air defence training.
The idea of making a device that can fly three to five times higher than normal aircraft occurred to him in February last year.
The most prominent feature of the flying instrument made by Dong Giang JSC is the ability to recover the device after experiments, thus reducing costs to search for the device and ensuring safety for the measuring instruments installed inside.
It took Vinh and his fellow workers six months to make the device, which weighs 600 kilos. It can fly at a height of 30-50 kilometers and a maximum of one week.
Dr. Vu Quoc Huy from the Hanoi Technology University said only a few countries in the world, including the US, France, Japan, Spain and India, possess technologies to develop flying instruments with a height of over 30 kilometers.
Huy stressed that if Vietnam can manufacture such unmanned aircrafts, it could make a big leap in the path to develop an aerospace industry.
In the first days of the year, Vinh quietly put his instrument to test overseas. The first test flight was conducted with the support of a Singaporean technology firm, a university and research institute.
The first test showed great success. It satisfied 80 percent of the requirements and could fly at the 23-kilometer ceiling within a radius of 150 kilometers.
According to Vinh, this height is far beyond the operation range of existing civil aircraft.
He hopes his flying instrument can reach the 30-kilometer ceiling in the next test.
Many scientists have expressed support for Vinh’s machine, saying that, with its prominent features and reasonable production costs (it is cheaper than many other kinds of aircraft and satellites), it can be used in a number of fields that would serve people.
(Source: VNN)
