Skyfly and FDOT Sign LOI for Florida Advanced Air Mobility Base at SunTrax

UK-based air­craft devel­op­er Skyfly Tech­nolo­gies has signed a let­ter of intent with the Flori­da Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion (FDOT) to estab­lish its first ded­i­cat­ed U.S. oper­a­tions at the Sun­Trax research facil­i­ty in Auburn­dale, Flori­da.

The agree­ment is intend­ed to sup­port Skyfly’s expan­sion into the U.S. mar­ket and pro­vide access to SunTrax’s test­ing infra­struc­ture for advanced air mobil­i­ty and autonomous trans­porta­tion tech­nolo­gies. The com­pa­ny is tar­get­ing occu­pan­cy dur­ing the fourth quar­ter of 2026, sub­ject to the com­ple­tion of a for­mal lease agree­ment.

Skyfly is devel­op­ing a unique and ground­break­ing two seat fixed-wing air­craft that is built to con­form
to the FAA’s new MOSAIC rules for Light-Sport Cat­e­go­ry air­craft. Called the Axe, it can take off and
land either con­ven­tion­al­ly with a run­way roll­out, or ver­ti­cal­ly with no run­way required, and then
effi­cient­ly cruise on its two wings. The fixed-wing air­craft is designed to oper­ate both from con­ven­tion­al run­ways and ver­ti­cal­ly with­out a run­way, using eight fixed-angle elec­tric motors. Its tan­dem-wing car­bon-com­pos­ite struc­ture is intend­ed to com­bine ver­ti­cal take­off capa­bil­i­ty with more effi­cient wing-borne cruise.

The Skyfly-FDOT agree­ment marks a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone in Skyfly­’s U.S. expan­sion strat­e­gy,
estab­lish­ing the com­pa­ny’s first ded­i­cat­ed pres­ence in the Unit­ed States and rein­forc­ing its
com­mit­ment to the U.S. as a core mar­ket for its advanced air mobil­i­ty tech­nol­o­gy.

“FDOT’s part­ner­ship with Skyfly brings vital test­ing and work­force oppor­tu­ni­ties to Flori­da, fur­ther
advanc­ing this emerg­ing mode of trans­porta­tion,” said Jared W. Per­due, P.E., Flori­da Depart­ment of
Trans­porta­tion Sec­re­tary. “Skyfly estab­lish­ing oper­a­tions at Sun­Trax brings Flori­da one step clos­er to
tak­ing high­ways to the sky and mak­ing fly­ing cars a real­i­ty.”

“Access to Sun­Trax gives us a world-class test­ing envi­ron­ment and puts us at the heart of one of the
most impor­tant advanced air mobil­i­ty ecosys­tems in the coun­try,” said Michael Thomp­son, CEO of
Skyfly Tech­nolo­gies. “This is an impor­tant step in bring­ing Skyfly­’s tech­nol­o­gy to the U.S. mar­ket.”

Under the terms of the LOI, Skyfly intends to com­mence occu­pan­cy of the leased space in the fourth
quar­ter of 2026. Sun­Trax will also sup­port Skyfly­’s growth in Flori­da, includ­ing assis­tance with local
work­force devel­op­ment, state and fed­er­al grant guid­ance, and reg­u­la­to­ry intro­duc­tions, includ­ing
with the FAA.

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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