SkyDrive secures 100th sponsor and plans for public flight demo later this year
More than 100 Japanese and international firms have now signed up to support eVTOL developer SkyDrive’s plans to commercialise Urban Air Mobility by 2023.
The company — which was set up by members of the Cartivator Group — now has support from firms including NEC Corp, Panasonic and Sony PCL, in the form of financial, technical and human resources. SkyDrive intends to carry out a public flight demo later this year, with a date yet to be announced.
Tomohiro Fukuzawa, SkyDrive President and co-representative of Cartivator, said: “On occasion, those of us who were pouring our time and energy into Cartivator’s flying car project as volunteers realised the limitations of privately funded development activities and wondered if our target of staging a flight demonstration in the summer of 2020 could be met.
“However, the generous support of our sponsors, which has come in the form of financial assistance, engineering expertise and insights, and human resources, has meant everything to us and enabled us to hang on to our dream and keep our project going.
“On behalf of the entire team, I would like once again to express my deepest gratitude to all of our sponsors and promise that we will remain fully committed to staging the flight demonstration scheduled for this summer.”
SkyDrive’s concept model is a two-seater aircraft which has eight propellers in the four corners of the vehicle. When in the air, it can travel at speeds of 60km/h for between 20 and 30km.
The company completed the technical verification phase in March, following Japan’s first-ever outdoor manned test flights of a flying car, which started in December 2019.
It is now at the stage of developing a market for prototypes for 2023 and working to confirm it meets the safety and security standards needed to obtain both aircraft and airworthiness certification from Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism.
