SkyDrive showcases ‘Ultra-Compact’ SD-03 Flying Vehicle at Dubai’s GITEX GLOBAL 2022

Sky­Drive will show­case its ultra-light and com­pact SD-03 fly­ing vehi­cle that requires no run­way at GITEX 2022 at the Dubai World Trade Cen­ter on 10–14 Octo­ber. Sky­Drive aims to start an air taxi ser­vice at World Expo 2025.

Designed to ver­ti­cal­ly take off and land with ‘superb’ sta­bil­i­ty, Sky­Drive suc­cess­ful­ly test­ed for pilot­ed flight in August 2020 with its SD-03 mod­el, advanc­ing toward com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion with the Japan­ese trans­porta­tion ministry’s accep­tance of its type cer­tifi­cate appli­ca­tion of the SD-05 in Octo­ber 2021.

The com­pa­ny claims this is a major mile­stone that no oth­er fly­ing vehi­cle devel­op­er has reached in Japan.

Sky­Drive CEO Tomo­hi­ro Fukuza­wa said: “As one of our strate­gic mar­kets, we are will­ing to ensure the Mid­dle East is aware of our lat­est devel­op­ments and progress.

“SkyDrive’s emis­sion-free fly­ing vehi­cles are designed to be able to take off from and land in small spaces like park­ing lots and heli­pads atop build­ings, mak­ing fly­ing vehi­cles a real­is­tic choice of dai­ly trans­porta­tion.”

The Sky­Drive SD-03 is a tech­ni­cal demon­stra­tion mod­el for the new, two-seater SD-05, which is cur­rent­ly under devel­op­ment as an air taxi for World Expo 2025 at Osa­ka, Kan­sai in Japan, where vis­i­tors will be able to board a full-scale SD-03 and expe­ri­ence the pilot seat of future air mobil­i­ty.

In May, Sky­Drive reached an agree­ment with the Japan Civ­il Avi­a­tion Bureau (JCAB) of the Min­istry of Land, Infra­struc­ture, Trans­port and Tourism (MLIT) to base the type cer­ti­fi­ca­tion for the company’s SD-05 fly­ing car.

The cer­ti­fi­ca­tion basis refers to the JCAB Air­wor­thi­ness Inspec­tion Man­u­al (AIM) Part II Revi­sion 61. It relates to SkyDrive’s SD-05 two-seat fly­ing car, for which MLIT accept­ed an appli­ca­tion for type cer­ti­fi­ca­tion in Octo­ber 2021, to launch an air taxi ser­vice in 2025.

Revi­sion 61 is the newest ver­sion of AIM Part II defines air­wor­thi­ness con­di­tions for fixed-wing air­craft that car­ry up to 19 pas­sen­gers and have a take­off weight of 8,618 kg or under.

It allows flex­i­bil­i­ty in the shape of the air­frame and air­craft sys­tem. It also estab­lish­es stan­dards for test­ing strength, struc­ture, and per­for­mance to val­i­date the safe­ty of the air­craft and its com­po­nents.