SkyDrive Partners with Kineco for Composite Aerostructures in SKYDRIVE eVTOL Production

Sky­Drive Inc. has signed a strate­gic part­ner­ship with Kineco Lim­it­ed to devel­op and man­u­fac­ture com­pos­ite aerostruc­tures for its SKYDRIVE (Mod­el SD-05) eVTOL air­craft.

The agree­ment was announced at the Farn­bor­ough Inter­na­tion­al Air­show. Kineco, one of India’s lead­ing aero­space com­pos­ite man­u­fac­tur­ers, will sup­port tool design, pro­to­type devel­op­ment, cer­ti­fi­ca­tion activ­i­ties, and prepa­ra­tion for ser­i­al pro­duc­tion.

Kineco has more than three decades of expe­ri­ence in advanced com­pos­ites for aero­space, defense, and oth­er sec­tors. The com­pa­ny has worked with major OEMs and Tier‑1 sup­pli­ers on flight-crit­i­cal struc­tures. This agree­ment rep­re­sents Kineco’s first ded­i­cat­ed pro­duc­tion pro­gram for an eVTOL plat­form.

The part­ner­ship is intend­ed to strength­en SkyDrive’s sup­ply chain as the com­pa­ny tran­si­tions from pro­to­type test­ing to com­mer­cial pro­duc­tion. Sky­Drive aims to begin com­mer­cial oper­a­tions around 2028. The col­lab­o­ra­tion lever­ages Kineco’s exper­tise in advanced com­pos­ites and its recent­ly installed large-scale auto­clave in Goa, which mea­sures 3 meters by 12 meters.

Sky­Drive has con­duct­ed exten­sive flight test­ing of its eVTOL pro­to­types, includ­ing demon­stra­tions at Expo 2025 Osa­ka, Osa­ka Port, Tokyo Big Sight, and oth­er loca­tions. The com­pa­ny is focused on inte­grat­ing high-volt­age elec­tric propul­sion sys­tems and com­plex air­frame designs that require light­weight, high-per­for­mance com­pos­ite mate­ri­als to meet safe­ty, effi­cien­cy, and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion stan­dards.

Arnaud Cov­ille, CTO of Sky­Drive, empha­sized the impor­tance of build­ing a robust man­u­fac­tur­ing ecosys­tem to sup­port safe and scal­able eVTOL oper­a­tions. “With a large engi­neer­ing organ­i­sa­tion and strong net­work, we are able to indus­tri­al­ize at an accel­er­at­ed pace. This col­lab­o­ra­tion not only strength­ens our man­u­fac­tur­ing ecosys­tem but also deep­ens the tech­no­log­i­cal and indus­tri­al bonds between Japan and India in the cut­ting-edge Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty sec­tor.”

Thomas Sleightholm

Thomas is a con­tent writer for eVTOL Insights, cov­er­ing all aspects of the glob­al Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty ecosys­tem. Got a sto­ry for him? Please send an email to editorial@evtolinsights.com

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