SkyDrive selects Thales flight control system at Paris Air Show

Sky­Drive announced at the Paris Air Show 2023 yes­ter­day that it has 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.

The fly-by-wire sys­tem is a crit­i­cal ele­ment of flight safe­ty. Thales pio­neered fly-by-wire solu­tions in the 1980s with the first instal­la­tion on the Air­bus A310. Since then, more than 12,000 air­craft have been equipped with Thales solu­tions.

Today, Thales Fly­tRise offers a new gen­er­a­tion of flight con­trols, offer­ing the com­bined ben­e­fits of proven expe­ri­ence and adap­ta­tion to eVTOL require­ments, in par­tic­u­lar light­ness, com­pact­ness, and auton­o­my-readi­ness.

Sky­Drive has been select­ed to par­tic­i­pate at the AAM Smart Mobil­i­ty Project at Expo 2025 Osa­ka in Kan­sai, Japan. Designed to be flown with one pilot and two pas­sen­gers on board for intra-city flights, Sky­Drive needs flight con­trol solu­tions secur­ing safe flights above pop­u­lat­ed areas.

Arnaud Cov­ille, Sky­Drive chief devel­op­ment offi­cer com­ment­ed: “Thales’s flight con­trols have long been trust­ed in the avi­a­tion indus­try. As an eVTOL man­u­fac­tur­er, Sky­Drive val­ues safe­ty above all, and we believe that part­ner­ing with Thales in flight con­trol will enable us to achieve the safe­ty objec­tives of our air­craft.”

Thales VP for flight avion­ics Jean-Paul Eban­ga added: “While mobil­i­ty is seek­ing new sus­tain­able solu­tions, we are proud to sup­port Sky­Drive in open­ing the skies to urban trans­porta­tion, thanks to our new gen­er­a­tion flight con­trol solu­tions.”

Thales is a glob­al leader in Defence & Secu­ri­ty, Aero­nau­tics & Space, and Dig­i­tal Iden­ti­ty, with 77,000 employ­ees in 68 coun­tries. In 2022, the Group gen­er­at­ed sales of €17.6 bil­lion. The Group invests close to €4 bil­lion a year in R&D in key areas such as quan­tum tech­nolo­gies, edge com­put­ing, 6G and cyber­se­cu­ri­ty.

Two months ago, Eve Air Mobil­i­ty teamed up with Thales to sup­port the devel­op­ment of its eVTOL air­craft in Brazil.

Eve Air Mobil­i­ty and Thales to con­duct joint stud­ies on the fea­si­bil­i­ty of eVTOL air­craft in Brazil