SkyDrive Receives “G‑1 Certification Basis From JCAB For eVTOL,” Publishes First Photograph of Latest Aircraft

Japan-based Sky­Drive has been releas­ing news dur­ing the last week like it’s con­fet­ti. Today, the com­pa­ny announced that the Japan Civ­il Avi­a­tion Bureau (JCAB) has issued a G‑1 cer­ti­fi­ca­tion basis for its eVTOL air­craft, reports a press release.

JCAB’s deci­sion rep­re­sents an impor­tant mile­stone along SkyDrive’s path to air­craft cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and com­mer­cial oper­a­tions. The agree­ment over the spe­cif­ic air­wor­thi­ness and per­for­mance cri­te­ria is required for the type cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of the 3‑seater air­craft.

The com­pa­ny has also released its first pic­tures of the lat­est look­ing eVTOL, cur­rent­ly under­go­ing flight tests in prepa­ra­tion for its offi­cial pub­lic unveil­ing at the World Expo 2025 in Osa­ka, where Sky­Drive will per­form demon­stra­tion flights only.

This lat­est agree­ment builds on an ear­li­er one reached in March 2022, to use the JCAB Air­wor­thi­ness Inspec­tion Man­u­al (AIM) Part II (Revi­sion 61) as the basis for the type cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of SkyDrive’s eVTOLs. 

AIM Part II defines air­wor­thi­ness cri­te­ria for fixed-wing air­craft that car­ry up to 19 pas­sen­gers and have a take­off weight of 19,000 lbs or less. Revi­sion 61 is the lat­est ver­sion of the AIM Part II and gives air­craft man­u­fac­tur­ers a greater degree of flex­i­bil­i­ty in select­ing the meth­ods they’ll use to demon­strate the safe­ty of their air­craft, allow­ing them to choose meth­ods which best match the aircraft’s spe­cif­ic char­ac­ter­is­tics. In a com­plex eVTOL cer­ti­fi­ca­tion world, This addi­tion­al agree­ment now pro­vides fur­ther clar­i­ty and direc­tion.

Fol­low­ing the new agree­ment, Sky­Drive and JCAB remain in dia­logue over the future cer­ti­fi­ca­tion plan, with the aim of reach­ing agree­ment over the required test­ing sched­ule and pro­ce­dures. Once the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion plan is finalised, Sky­Drive will begin ground and flight test­ing of the air­craft. Along­side its work with JCAB, the com­pa­ny is work­ing con­cur­rent­ly with the Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion (FAA) to val­i­date a cer­ti­fi­ca­tion process for its eVTOL in the Unit­ed States. This strate­gic approach enables Sky­Drive to align its cer­ti­fi­ca­tion efforts in both nations, paving a smoother path towards stan­dard­ised glob­al oper­a­tions.

Arnaud Cov­ille, SkyDrive’s Chief Devel­op­ment Offi­cer, com­ment­ed, “We have reached this sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone through a series of respect­ful and col­lab­o­ra­tive dis­cus­sions with the JCAB. The issuance of this cer­ti­fi­ca­tion basis rep­re­sents the cul­mi­na­tion of sub­stan­tial efforts invest­ed over sev­er­al months.”

He con­tin­ued, “We are also thrilled with the recent progress achieved in our val­i­da­tion project with the FAA. Our pro­to­type air­craft, which is cur­rent­ly under­go­ing an exten­sive series of flight tests, con­tin­ues to accu­mu­late valu­able data as we make steady progress toward the upcom­ing demon­stra­tion flights at the Osa­ka Expo.”

Glob­al Engi­neer­ing Team for the Devel­op­ment and Pro­duc­tion of SKYDRIVE (SD-05)

Last week, Sky­Drive released two fur­ther news sto­ries.

First off, was an announce­ment by the Japan­ese com­pa­ny that it has start­ed dis­cus­sions with the East Japan Rail­way Com­pa­ny (JR East) to pro­vide eVTOL expe­ri­ences at a top-class hotel, AZUMA FARM KOIWAI. Sched­uled to open in spring 2026, the premis­es aims to offer guests a unique oppor­tu­ni­ty to expe­ri­ence air trav­el as part of its exclu­sive ser­vices.

JR East is a pio­neer when it comes to cre­at­ing trav­el expe­ri­ences that high­light the diverse appeal of local regions, includ­ing nature, cui­sine, indus­try and tra­di­tion. In line with this vision, JR East launched a new hotel brand called AZUMA FARM last month. The first hotel under this brand, ‘KOIWAI,’ opens next year in the Iwate Pre­fec­ture.

The two par­ties will part­ner to explore the offer­ing of air taxi expe­ri­ences as an enhance­ment for hotel guests. They are cur­rent­ly con­sid­er­ing plans for an eVTOL route con­nect­ing Morio­ka city, a key access point to Koi­wai Farm, to the hotel along­side tourism flights. 

Image above shows sim­u­lat­ed Sky­Drive eVTOL air­craft oper­a­tions over the city of Morio­ka, Iwate

The release explains, “This inno­v­a­tive trans­porta­tion option would enable guests to enjoy stun­ning views of Mount Iwate and the beau­ti­ful sur­round­ing land­scapes while trav­el­ing in pri­va­cy and com­fort, mak­ing trav­el time a tru­ly mem­o­rable expe­ri­ence.” 

The part­ners will explore essen­tial fac­tors such as land­ing and take­off loca­tions, flight routes and tick­et pric­ing.

The third news announce­ment involves JY Kyushu, a Japan­ese rail­way com­pa­ny and Sky­Drive, launch­ing a col­lab­o­ra­tion along­side the Oita Pre­fec­tur­al Gov­ern­ment, to assess the future eVTOL mar­ket in the Oita region.

The release explains, “The agree­ment is to explore how the future pro­vi­sion of eVTOL ser­vices can improve the prefecture’s trans­porta­tion infra­struc­ture, pro­vid­ing eco­nom­ic ben­e­fits and improved trav­el con­ve­nience to local com­mu­ni­ties and busi­ness­es.”

It con­tin­ues, “The part­ner­ship intends to sur­vey poten­tial take­off and land­ing sites, eval­u­ate prof­itabil­i­ty and estab­lish a frame­work for future flight oper­a­tions, lay­ing the ground­work for the pro­vi­sion of com­mer­cial­ly viable eVTOL ser­vices with a tar­get ser­vice launch date some­time around 2028.”

The plan is to launch scenic flights over Bep­pu Bay, air taxi oper­a­tions with­in Bep­pu City, as well as ser­vices con­nect­ing the Bep­pu and Yufuin resorts. 

From 2030 onward, both com­pa­nies also envi­sion fur­ther expand­ing these ser­vices to include flights con­nect­ing Yufuin, Koko­noe, Kusu and the Oku-Hita area, along with air taxi ser­vices from Oita City to the Bep­pu and Yufuin area and from Oita Air­port to both Bep­pu and Oita City.

While future tick­et pric­ing will depend on flight fre­quen­cy and pas­sen­ger occu­pan­cy, the two par­ties intend to pro­vide eVTOL air taxi ser­vices at prices low enough to com­pete with con­ven­tion­al road-based taxis.

For more infor­ma­tion

https://en.skydrive2020.com/

https://www.mlit.go.jp/koku/15_hf_000020.html

https://www.jreast.co.jp/multi/en

https://www.jrkyushu.co.jp/english

(Top image: SkyDrive’s Lat­est Look­ing eVTOL Air­craft)

For the lat­est news, insights and con­tent regard­ing the glob­al Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty mar­ket, please join the fol­low­ing eVTOL Insights chan­nels: What­sApp, Face­book, Insta­gram, Spo­ti­fy, Apple Pod­casts, YouTube, X and LinkedIn.