FIA 2026: SkyDrive Partners with 70-Year Veteran Sanyoh to Secure Defence-Grade Nadcap-Certified Precision Components for “SKYDRIVE” eVTOL

Strate­gic Part­ner­ship Locks in Ful­ly Inte­grat­ed, End-to-End Pre­ci­sion Sheet Met­al Fab­ri­ca­tion for Next Gen­er­a­tion Air­craft Struc­ture

Sky­Drive Inc. (“Sky­Drive”), a lead­ing com­pact eVTOL air­craft devel­op­er based in Japan, today announced at the Farn­bor­ough Inter­na­tion­al Air­show 2026 a strate­gic part­ner­ship with Sany­oh Man­u­fac­tur­ing Co. (“Sany­oh”), a Japan-based spe­cial­ist in high-pre­ci­sion aero­space sheet met­al fab­ri­ca­tion.

The two com­pa­nies have signed a Sales and Pur­chase Agree­ment for the man­u­fac­tur­ing and sup­ply of key high-pre­ci­sion sheet met­al parts for SkyDrive’s pro­duc­tion air­craft, the “SKYDRIVE” (Mod­el SD-05).

Through this part­ner­ship, Sany­oh will lever­age its deep, sev­en-decade her­itage in pre­ci­sion sheet met­al fab­ri­ca­tion and advanced pro­cess­ing to man­u­fac­ture essen­tial “Built-to-Print” prod­ucts. The scope of sup­ply includes crit­i­cal struc­tur­al and mechan­i­cal com­po­nents designed to opti­mize the per­for­mance, weight, and safe­ty of the SD-05.

■ Key High­lights of the Part­ner­ship Include:

• High-Pre­ci­sion Sheet Met­al Fab­ri­ca­tion
  Sany­oh will man­u­fac­ture light­weight, durable sheet met­al com­po­nents essen­tial for the aircraft’s air­frame struc­tur­al integri­ty. This uti­lizes its advanced form­ing, bend­ing, and assem­bly capa­bil­i­ties devel­oped over decades of defence and com­mer­cial avi­a­tion pro­duc­tion.
  
• Glob­al­ly Accred­it­ed Nad­cap Spe­cial Process­es
  Sany­oh will lever­age its aero­space-grade qual­i­ty stan­dards (JIS Q 9100 / AS9100) and mul­ti­ple Nad­cap-cer­ti­fied spe­cial process­es, includ­ing heat treat­ing, chem­i­cal pro­cess­ing, non-destruc­tive test­ing, and sur­face enhance­ment, at its state-of-the-art facil­i­ty to meet rig­or­ous inter­na­tion­al air­wor­thi­ness require­ments.
  
• Resilient One-Stop Sup­ply Chain
  By inte­grat­ing Sanyoh’s ful­ly ver­ti­cal­ly inte­grat­ed man­u­fac­tur­ing from Tochi­gi, Sky­Drive secures a high­ly reli­able, domes­tic, end-to-end pro­duc­tion source that strength­ens its glob­al sup­ply net­work.

Ensur­ing Struc­tur­al Reli­a­bil­i­ty through Japan­ese Pre­ci­sion Sheet Met­al Engi­neer­ing

As eVTOL air­craft demand the high­est lev­els of safe­ty stan­dards and struc­tur­al assem­bly, the qual­i­ty and flight-readi­ness of every sin­gle fab­ri­cat­ed sheet met­al joint and com­po­nent are para­mount. Sky­Drive has select­ed Sany­oh to man­u­fac­ture crit­i­cal sheet met­al ele­ments of the “SKYDRIVE” (Mod­el SD-05).

Head­quar­tered in Utsunomiya, Tochi­gi, Sany­oh has been a trust­ed part­ner in the aero­space and defence sec­tors since 1952. Sany­oh will lever­age its end-to-end, in-house pro­duc­tion system—encompassing pre­ci­sion sheet met­al form­ing, heat treat­ing, sur­face chem­i­cal treat­ments, aero­space paint­ing, and non-destruc­tive testing—to deliv­er com­plex, flight-crit­i­cal sheet met­al parts.

Atsushi Yoshimu­ra, Pres­i­dent of Sany­oh Man­u­fac­tur­ing Co., said: “It is a great hon­or that Sky­Drive has cho­sen Sany­oh Man­u­fac­tur­ing Co. as one of the SD-05 sup­pli­ers. Since its found­ing, Sany­oh Man­u­fac­tur­ing Co. has been engaged for over 70 years in the pro­duc­tion of parts, sur­face treatment/painting, and struc­tur­al assem­bly for large com­mer­cial air­planes as well as air­craft for Japan’s Self-Defence Forces. In addi­tion, Sany­oh Man­u­fac­tur­ing Co. has exten­sive expe­ri­ence in the pro­duc­tion and assem­bly of parts for mass-pro­duced items, such as large office equip­ment, sep­a­rat­ed from aero­space-relat­ed work. We will lever­age our air­craft man­u­fac­tur­ing tech­nol­o­gy and mass pro­duc­tion expe­ri­ence to engage in the pro­duc­tion of SkyDrive’s eVTOL vehi­cle, a new means of air trans­porta­tion. We look for­ward to con­tribut­ing to the devel­op­ment of this new mode of trans­porta­tion as part of SkyDrive’s sup­ply chain.”

Arnaud Cov­ille, CTO, Sky­Drive, said: “Sany­oh Man­u­fac­tur­ing Co. is an estab­lished play­er in the Japan­ese aero­space indus­try, man­u­fac­tur­ing a range of civ­il and defence use parts. Sup­port­ing Sky­Drive with parts since our full-scale fly­ing pro­to­type, util­is­ing their strong automa­tion capa­bil­i­ties, exten­sive Nad­cap approvals and ver­ti­cal inte­gra­tion, Sany­oh Man­u­fac­tur­ing Co. is the ide­al part­ner for sheet met­al parts and fab­ri­ca­tions. I’m delight­ed to have their sup­port in our sup­ply chain as we move to pro­duc­tion.”

For more infor­ma­tion, please vis­it: https://www.sanyoh.co.jp/