Members of Public Urged to Join SkyDrive’s first Passenger Experience Trial in Tokyo, Taking Place Later This Month

Sky­Drive will con­duct demo flights of its SD-05 eVTOL air­craft in Japan lat­er this month and is invit­ing mem­bers of the pub­lic to help mon­i­tor the pas­sen­ger expe­ri­ence.

The ini­tia­tive between Feb­ru­ary 24th and Feb­ru­ary 28th is being orga­nized in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Tokyo Met­ro­pol­i­tan Gov­ern­ment, Mit­subishi Estate Co., Ltd., and Kane­mat­su Cor­po­ra­tion. It is part of the Tokyo Met­ro­pol­i­tan Government’s ‘Project for Devel­op­ing Busi­ness Mod­els for eVTOL (Fly­ing Car) Ser­vices in Tokyo’.

Those who are cho­sen to be part of the ini­tia­tive will test the board­ing process at a ded­i­cat­ed ter­mi­nal facil­i­ty equipped with facial recog­ni­tion tech­nol­o­gy, help­ing Sky­Drive to craft a smooth and effi­cient flow for future pas­sen­gers.

The flights, which will not car­ry pas­sen­gers, will take place at a tem­po­rary take-off and land­ing site in the out­door park­ing lot of Tokyo Big Sight’s East Wing. This event will also mark SkyDrive’s first-ever demo flight in Japan’s cap­i­tal city.

Addi­tion­al­ly, the demo flight and the pas­sen­ger ter­mi­nal facil­i­ty will be open to the pub­lic for view­ing.

Demo Flight Details

The planned flight path is a cir­cu­lar route that will either remain with­in the park­ing lot premis­es or extend from the land­ing site over the sea.

The demo flight will fea­ture the same mod­el flown by Sky­Drive at the 2025 World Expo in Osa­ka and near­by OsakaKo Ver­ti­port. The air­craft will be oper­at­ed with­out an on-board pilot, using a com­bi­na­tion of auto­mat­ed con­trol and remote pilot tech­nol­o­gy to ensure the high­est stan­dards of flight safe­ty.

• Time：1st flight 9:30am／2nd flight 12:05pm
• Entry fee：Free of charge
• Venue：East Wing Out­door Tem­po­rary Park­ing Lot @ Tokyo Big Sight 3–11‑1 Ari­ake, Koto-ku, Tokyo

1. Event par­tic­i­pants will be able to pho­to­graph the air­craft after each flight as it is returned to the hangar. On the final day of the demo flight pro­gram (Sat­ur­day, Feb­ru­ary 28^th), mem­bers of the pub­lic will be able to approach and pho­to­graph the air­craft on the land­ing pad (please fol­low the instruc­tions of the safe­ty super­vi­sors)
2. The oper­a­tion of these demo flights requires the sub­mis­sion of the appro­pri­ate appli­ca­tions and noti­fi­ca­tions to the relat­ed author­i­ties and receipt of the rel­e­vant per­mis­sions
3. Please note that due to the weath­er and oth­er fac­tors, flight depar­ture times may vary by around 10 min­utes. In some cas­es, how­ev­er, can­cel­la­tion of the demo flights may be unavoid­able
4. To ensure the safe­ty of all vis­i­tors, we may lim­it entry to the view­ing area in the event of over­crowd­ing. We appre­ci­ate your coop­er­a­tion and under­stand­ing.

Call for Par­tic­i­pants: Pas­sen­ger Expe­ri­ence Tri­als

Sky­Drive is recruit­ing mem­bers of the pub­lic to help us mon­i­tor our pas­sen­ger expe­ri­ence and ver­i­fy the oper­a­tional effi­cien­cy of our eVTOL pas­sen­ger ter­mi­nals.

The objec­tive of this tri­al is for par­tic­i­pants to expe­ri­ence core ele­ments of the pas­sen­ger jour­ney using advanced tech­nolo­gies such as facial recog­ni­tion.

The feed­back gath­ered will be instru­men­tal in refin­ing our ser­vices and oper­a­tions as we lay the ground­work for the future intro­duc­tion of safe, fast and con­ve­nient urban air mobil­i­ty.

Dai­ly expe­ri­ence slots, which last about 30 min­utes, have capac­i­ty for 10 adults each. Par­tic­i­pa­tion is free and to apply, please vis­it https://tokyodemonstration-airmobility.peatix.com

As the flight is uncrewed, board­ing and fly­ing in the air­craft is not includ­ed in the expe­ri­ence.

After the sec­ond flight of the day, mon­i­tors will be able to approach and pho­to­graph the air­craft on the land­ing pad. After com­plet­ing their board­ing expe­ri­ence, mon­i­tors will also be able to enter the oper­a­tions room and view the equip­ment Sky­Drive uses for mon­i­tor­ing the sur­round­ing air space and local weath­er.

Par­tic­i­pants in the pro­gram will be asked to pre-reg­is­ter a pho­to for the facial recog­ni­tion process, and to fill in a ques­tion­naire on their expe­ri­ence. The orga­niz­ing office will con­tact eli­gi­ble can­di­dates sep­a­rate­ly with fur­ther details. Please review the infor­ma­tion on the appli­ca­tion page before sub­mit­ting your appli­ca­tion.

Pub­lic View­ing of the Pas­sen­ger Ter­mi­nal

The venue will be open to all mem­bers of the pub­lic from 8:30am to 5:30pm JST through­out the flight demon­stra­tion peri­od. You do not need to join the mon­i­tor pro­gram to look inside. How­ev­er, please be aware that view­ing of the ter­mi­nal inte­ri­or will be restrict­ed dur­ing the fol­low­ing time slots:

All times in JST

• Tue, Feb 24th：08:30am – 10:30am / 01:00pm – 4:30pm
• Wed, Feb 25th：08:30am – 12:30pm / 01:00pm – 4:30pm
• Sat, Feb 28th：08:30am – 01:30pm

The oper­a­tions room for con­trol­ling our demo flights will be open for view­ing as per the sched­ule below.

• Thu, Feb 26th：01:00pm – 02:00pm
• Fri, Feb 27th：01:00pm – 02:00pm

*When inside the oper­a­tions room, please do not take any pho­tographs or touch any equip­ment.