SkyDrive introduces its eVTOL to South Carolina

Sky­Drive is to deliv­er up to five of its eVTOL air­craft to Austin Avi­a­tion in Beau­fort, along with its net­work of South Car­oli­na Air­ports.

The com­pa­ny aims to start com­mer­cial oper­a­tions when it has com­plet­ed essen­tial devel­op­ment mile­stones, while Vola­tus will pro­vide crit­i­cal exper­tise in SkyDrive’s infra­struc­ture plan to extend from South Carolina’s air­ports to rur­al areas with­in the state. The com­pa­ny will use its exist­ing facil­i­ties at Low­coun­try Avi­a­tion Com­pa­ny in Wal­ter­boro.

“We have received an over­whelm­ing amount of sup­port from local, region­al and state organ­i­sa­tions here in South Car­oli­na to devel­op our tech­nol­o­gy and oper­a­tions with­in the state,” said Tomo­hi­ro Fukuza­wa, Founder and CEO of Sky­Drive.

“We aim to place South Car­oli­na at the fore­front of the AAM infra­struc­ture devel­op­ment in the U.S. and make our air­craft more wide­ly acces­si­ble in the future.”

Austin Avi­a­tion pres­i­dent Alex Cavaz­zoni added: ““Sus­tain­able elec­tric eVTOL vehi­cles are the next new excit­ing chal­lenge in Gen­er­al Avi­a­tion, fol­low­ing the ear­ly lead of the auto­mo­tive indus­try with elec­tric propul­sion.

“With Sky­Drive and all South Car­oli­na stake­hold­ers, we look for­ward to being a part of this next excit­ing chap­ter in Gen­er­al Avi­a­tion, as this new pio­neer­ing elec­tric tech­nol­o­gy matures into real­i­ty.”

Vola­tus Infra­struc­ture co-founder Grant Fisk con­tin­ued: “We are excit­ed to be work­ing along­side Sky­Drive to devel­op a state-wide AAM infra­struc­ture plan. We hope this sets the tone for the AAM indus­try in the U.S. and allows for greater advance­ment and acces­si­bil­i­ty,”

Har­ry Light­sey, Sec­re­tary of Com­merce at the State of South Car­oli­na Depart­ment of Com­merce, rejoined: “Con­grat­u­la­tions to Sky­Drive on its alliances with Austin Avi­a­tion and Vola­tus. In choos­ing to base its U.S. oper­a­tions in South Car­oli­na, Sky­Drive is cap­i­tal­is­ing on the state’s advanced and capa­ble aero­space indus­try – as well as our sup­port­ive, dynam­ic busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty – to fur­ther inte­grate this inno­va­tion into the mar­ket. We look for­ward to see­ing the Sky­Drive eVTOL air­crafts take flight.”

Stephen Mur­ray, May­or of Beau­fort City in South Car­oli­na, con­clud­ed: “The City of Beau­fort is proud to be the US home base for Sky­Drive and we are excit­ed to see their busi­ness take-off through con­tin­ued part­ner­ships with glob­al and region­al sup­pli­ers.

“The Low­coun­try and South Car­oli­na are poised to be a dom­i­nant play­er in the eVTOL and EV indus­try because of the hard work and resources made avail­able by Team Beau­fort and Team South Car­oli­na.”

Sky­Drive announced at the Paris Air Show 2023 last month that it select­ed Thales to pro­vide a flight con­trol sys­tem for its pro­duc­tion eVTOL, one of the key ele­ments of eVTOL air­craft for cal­cu­lat­ing and adjust­ing the posi­tion of the aircraft’s con­trol sur­faces and man­ag­ing engine thrust.

Sky­Drive selects Thales flight con­trol sys­tem at Paris Air Show