UK: Skyfly’s Axe eVTOL “Completes Initial Phase of Piloted Trial Flights, Selected for MOD Heavy-Lift UASHLC Supplier Framework” 

Skyfly has announced two items of news dur­ing the last week, reports a press release. 

: The company’s two-seat Axe eVTOL has suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ed its ini­tial flight tri­al pro­gram after being grant­ed approval for manned test fly­ing ear­li­er this year from the UK Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty (CAA). This is the first of three impor­tant land­marks.

: Skyfly’s Axe has been select­ed by the UK’s Min­istry of Defence (MOD) for its Uncrewed Air Sys­tems Heavy Lift Capa­bil­i­ty (UASHLC) Sup­pli­er Frame­work.

This first phase of test­ing has been used to tune the aircraft’s han­dling dur­ing ver­ti­cal take offs and land­ings, hov­er­ing and low-speed rotor-borne flight.

Michael Thomp­son, CEO of Skyfly and the eVTOL’s test pilot, enthused, “It’s tru­ly an exhil­a­rat­ing expe­ri­ence to feel this air­craft lift off with the qui­et hum of elec­tric motors instead of the roar of a pis­ton engine. The calm and smooth sound, com­bined with min­i­mal vibra­tion, makes for a reas­sur­ing flight.”

He con­tin­ued, “We are par­tic­u­lar­ly pleased with the for­ward vis­i­bil­i­ty under the wing, which has been a con­cern for many. By installing a wide angle for­ward-fac­ing cam­era, we also improved sit­u­a­tion­al aware­ness. This is unlike any­thing I’ve ever flown. I can’t wait to see this air­craft advance to for­ward flight soon, tick­ing off anoth­er major mile­stone.” 

Atten­tion will now shift to this next stage: Test­ing the wing-borne for­ward flight mode, includ­ing con­ven­tion­al take-offs and land­ings on a run­way begin­ning in Jan­u­ary 2025. 

The release explains, “In for­ward flight, the Axe unique­ly uses mechan­i­cal con­trol link­ages from the stick and ped­als direct­ly to the con­trol sur­faces, as opposed to a ser­vo dri­ven fly-by-wire sys­tem. This is for total secu­ri­ty for the pilot in the event of a pow­er fail­ure and the air­crafts abil­i­ty to glide and land.” 

It con­tin­ues, “Once the Axe has mas­tered for­ward flight, the third mile­stone will be to start tri­alling the air­borne tran­si­tion between the two flight modes, bring­ing the Axe from wing-borne flight into the hov­er and vice-ver­sa.”

Mean­while, Skyfly’s selec­tion by the MOD for UASHLC sup­pli­er frame­works of the company’s eHar­ri­er air­craft, a mil­i­tary ver­sion of the Axe eVTOL, is anoth­er major step for­ward for the com­pa­ny. This craft has the same basic design as the Axe, but comes at less cost and a low­er noise foot­print.

Like the Axe, the eHar­ri­er can be used in a ful­ly-elec­tric or hybrid-elec­tric con­fig­u­ra­tion. How­ev­er, unlike the Axe, it can be pilot­ed autonomous­ly, and can be fit­ted out for both crewed and uncrewed mis­sions.

“These oper­a­tions could include the inser­tion of troops, med­ical evac­u­a­tion and the trans­porta­tion of car­go and sup­plies, among var­i­ous oth­er poten­tial mis­sion sets,” explains the release.

Michael Thomp­son

Thomp­son remarked, “Upon the release and launch of the Axe as a two seat per­son­al vehi­cle, we have received sig­nif­i­cant inter­est from both pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors for an unmanned vari­ant due to its heavy lift capa­bil­i­ty and improved range, when com­pared to exist­ing UAV sys­tems on the mar­ket. We look for­ward to demon­strat­ing the eHar­ri­ers capa­bil­i­ties to the MOD.”

The UASHLC Frame­work is a UKP95 mil­lion pro­gram run by the MOD’s Future Capa­bil­i­ties Inno­va­tion Office. The release con­tin­ues, “It is tasked with expe­dit­ing the devel­op­ment of unmanned heavy-lift air­craft and bring­ing them to mar­ket as fast as pos­si­ble to meet the require­ments of the UK mil­i­tary.”

And adds, “The project is pri­mar­i­ly aimed at devel­op­ing new tech­nolo­gies for the mar­itime envi­ron­ment, where the eHar­ri­er might be used to trans­port equip­ment and sup­plies between ves­sels, or from ship to shore, oper­at­ing at a frac­tion of the cost of a con­ven­tion­al heli­copter.”

Skyfly will be eli­gi­ble to bid for fur­ther UASHLC con­tracts and asso­ci­at­ed fund­ing by opti­mis­ing the eHar­ri­er to meet spe­cif­ic task­ing require­ments and oper­a­tion sets.

For more infor­ma­tion

www.skyfly.aero

(Images: Skyfly)

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