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SkyDrive completes first public manned flight of its eVTOL aircraft

eVTOL devel­op­er Sky­Drive has con­duct­ed the first pub­lic flight demo of its new sin­gle-seater SD-03 fly­ing car in Japan.

Designed to be the world’s small­est eVTOL mod­el as a means of trans­porta­tion, the four-minute flight took place ear­li­er this week at the 2.5‑acre Toy­ota test Field, which is one of the coun­try’s largest test fields and home to the com­pa­ny’s devel­op­ment base.

A pilot was at the con­trols, while a com­put­er-assist­ed con­trol sys­tem helped ensure flight sta­bil­i­ty and safe­ty and tech­ni­cal staff mon­i­tored flight con­di­tions and air­craft per­for­mance at all times as back­up.

Tomo­hi­ro Fukuza­wa, CEO of Sky­Drive, said: “We are extreme­ly excit­ed to have achieved Japan’s first-ever manned flight of a fly­ing car in the two years since we found­ed Sky­Drive in 2018, with the goal of com­mer­cial­is­ing such air­craft.

“We want to realise a soci­ety where fly­ing cars are an acces­si­ble and con­ve­nient means of trans­porta­tion in the skies and peo­ple are able to expe­ri­ence a safe, secure, and com­fort­able new way of life.

“We also aspire to devel­op mar­kets around the world, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with our part­ner com­pa­nies, so that an urban air mobil­i­ty soci­ety with air­craft sup­plied by Sky­Drive becomes a real­i­ty not only in Japan, but also across the globe.”

The SD-03 mea­sures two meters high, four meters wide and four meters long, only requir­ing as much space on the ground as two parked cars.

The pow­er­train con­sists of elec­tric motors that dri­ve rotors deployed in four loca­tions, with each loca­tion hous­ing two rotors that indi­vid­u­al­ly rotate in oppo­site direc­tions, each dri­ven by its own motor.

The use of eight motors is a means of ensur­ing safe­ty in emer­gency sit­u­a­tions dur­ing flight and as such aims to address com­pli­ance stan­dards and allay poten­tial reg­u­la­to­ry con­cerns.

Sky­Drive will now con­tin­ue to con­duct test flights under an expand­ing range of con­di­tions in order to improve its tech­nolo­gies fur­ther and achieve full com­pli­ance with the safe­ty pro­vi­sions of the Civ­il Aero­nau­tics Act.

Nobuo Kishi, Sky­Drive’s Chief Tech­nol­o­gy Offi­cer, said: The manned flight we have achieved this time is the cul­mi­na­tion of SkyDrive’s achieve­ments for tech­ni­cal ver­i­fi­ca­tion.

“We have been work­ing on the design of elec­tric propul­sion sys­tems, flight con­trol sys­tems, air­craft struc­tures, test­ing, man­u­fac­tur­ing, and intro­duc­ing mon­i­tor­ing equip­ment for air­craft con­di­tions dur­ing flight test­ing step by step, and with a con­sid­er­able sense of speed.

“We will con­tin­ue to devel­op tech­nolo­gies and acquire type cer­ti­fi­ca­tion so that safe and secure fly­ing car oper­a­tion ser­vices can be launched in fis­cal 2023.”

Based on the results of SD-03 test­ing, Sky­Drive says it aims to obtain approval for flights out­side the lim­its of the Toy­ota Test Field before the end of this year.

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Jason Pritchard

Jason Pritchard is the Editor of eVTOL Insights. He holds a BA from Leicester's De Montfort University and has worked in Journalism and Public Relations for more than a decade. Outside of work, Jason enjoys playing and watching football and golf. He also has a keen interest in Ancient Egypt.

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