Skyfly Technologies opens electric propulsion platform to aircraft OEMs

Announced at EAA Air­Ven­ture Oshkosh, Skyfly­’s FAA LSA-com­pli­ant elec­tric propul­sion enabling
tech­nol­o­gy will now be avail­able to oth­er air­craft OEMs, along­side a Hybrid Propul­sion Sys­tem
pur­pose-built for unmanned air­craft with dis­trib­uted elec­tric propul­sion.

Skyfly Tech­nolo­gies, a leader in elec­tric and hybrid propul­sion for avi­a­tion, today announced at EAA Air­Ven­ture Oshkosh that it will make its elec­tric propul­sion tech­nol­o­gy avail­able to oth­er air­craft orig­i­nal equip­ment man­u­fac­tur­ers (OEMs) as an enabling tech­nol­o­gy for elec­tric flight through the sec­ondary mar­ket, giv­ing OEMs flex­i­bil­i­ty in how they inte­grate it across a range of air­craft con­fig­u­ra­tions. Along­side this, Skyfly unveiled a Hybrid Propul­sion Sys­tem aimed at unmanned air­craft plat­forms using dis­trib­uted elec­tric propul­sion (DEP).

Togeth­er, the two announce­ments extend Skyfly­’s propul­sion tech­nol­o­gy beyond its own air­craft
plat­form and into new seg­ments of the mar­ket.
The announce­ment coin­cides with the unveil­ing of Skyfly­’s pro­duc­tion-spec air­craft, on dis­play at
stand VL‑3 through­out the show.

“We’ve been engi­neer­ing a propul­sion sys­tem built specif­i­cal­ly for the demands and safe­ty
require­ments of light sport air­craft,” said Michael Thomp­son, CEO, Skyfly Tech­nolo­gies. “Open­ing that
tech­nol­o­gy to the wider OEM com­mu­ni­ty means oth­er man­u­fac­tur­ers no longer have to build this
capa­bil­i­ty from scratch. Our archi­tec­ture works across a range of air­craft con­fig­u­ra­tions, so OEMs can
bring an elec­tri­fied air­craft to mar­ket faster, with propul­sion tech­nol­o­gy that’s already engi­neered
around the rules we helped write. Along­side that, our Hybrid Propul­sion Sys­tem address­es a very
dif­fer­ent need — giv­ing unmanned plat­forms using dis­trib­uted elec­tric propul­sion the range and
endurance that pure bat­tery-elec­tric sys­tems can’t yet match. And with our pro­duc­tion air­craft here
on stand VL‑3, atten­dees can see exact­ly what our elec­tric propul­sion tech­nol­o­gy enables in a real,
fly­ing plat­form.”

Elec­tric Propul­sion Enabling Tech­nol­o­gy

At the core of the offer­ing is the Inte­grat­ed Motor Invert­er, a com­pact, high-effi­cien­cy motor and
invert­er unit co-devel­oped with Ger­man engi­neer­ing firm, Sci­Mo. The archi­tec­ture is designed to
sup­port a range of air­craft con­fig­u­ra­tions and can be con­sid­ered a direct swap for a Rotax 100hp
engine. The motor is paired with a bespoke Pow­er Dis­tri­b­u­tion Unit (PDU), pur­pose-built for Skyfly­’s
archi­tec­ture and LSA safe­ty require­ments, and a High ener­gy den­si­ty 800v class bat­tery sys­tem.
The Pow­er Dis­tri­b­u­tion Unit and bat­tery mod­ules com­plete the elec­tric propul­sion sys­tem. The
bat­tery sys­tem is a bespoke, high ener­gy 800v class archi­tec­ture, devel­oped in-house to meet the
per­for­mance and safe­ty demands of cer­ti­fied LSA oper­a­tion. Full spec­i­fi­ca­tions for both will be
released ahead of avail­abil­i­ty.

Skyfly holds a seat on the rule­mak­ing com­mit­tee for the FAA’s forth­com­ing MOSAIC rul­ing, giv­ing the
com­pa­ny direct insight into the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion require­ments an LSA propul­sion sys­tem will need to meet ‑insight it has engi­neered direct­ly into its elec­tric propul­sion tech­nol­o­gy.

Hybrid Propul­sion for Unmanned Air­craft with Dis­trib­uted Elec­tric Propul­sion

Along­side the EPS announce­ment, Skyfly also unveiled its Hybrid Propul­sion Sys­tem, pur­pose-built
for unmanned air­craft that use dis­trib­uted elec­tric propul­sion (DEP). Rather than tar­get­ing the LSA seg­ment, the sys­tem is designed to give DEP-based unmanned plat­forms the extend­ed range and
endurance that pure bat­tery-elec­tric archi­tec­tures strug­gle to deliv­er. Built around a light, high-pow­er
tur­bine gen­er­a­tor, the sys­tem extends range up to 400+ miles, with the abil­i­ty to charge in flight and
recharge on the ground when off-grid. Com­pat­i­bil­i­ty with JP8 fuel extends the sys­tem’s rel­e­vance
beyond civ­il UAS appli­ca­tions into mil­i­tary use.

A Grow­ing Mar­ket for Hybrid-Elec­tric UAS Propul­sion

The Hybrid Propul­sion Sys­tem also tar­gets a fast-grow­ing mar­ket. The glob­al UAV propul­sion sys­tem
mar­ket is pro­ject­ed to grow from $9.82 bil­lion in 2026 to $27.18 bil­lion by 2034, a 13.6% CAGR, with
the hybrid-elec­tric seg­ment expect­ed to be the fastest-grow­ing cat­e­go­ry at a 17.0% CAGR over the
fore­cast peri­od. Look­ing specif­i­cal­ly at elec­tric propul­sion for unmanned air­craft, that mar­ket was
val­ued at $9.85 bil­lion in 2024 and is pro­ject­ed to reach $28.64 bil­lion by 2032, grow­ing at rough­ly
14.2% annu­al­ly. Much of that growth is being dri­ven by plat­forms that need more range and
endurance than bat­ter­ies alone can deliv­er — pro­grams like DARPA’s XRQ-73 SHEPARD hybrid￾electric demon­stra­tor have shown mul­ti-hour loi­ter times with­out sac­ri­fic­ing a low acoustic sig­na­ture,
the same oper­a­tional pro­file Skyfly­’s Hybrid Propul­sion Sys­tem is designed to sup­port for DEP-based
unmanned plat­forms.

Pro­duc­tion Air­craft on Dis­play at Stand VL‑3

Vis­i­tors to EAA Air­Ven­ture Oshkosh can see Skyfly­’s pro­duc­tion-spec air­craft in per­son at stand VL‑3
for the dura­tion of the show. The air­craft is pow­ered by the same Elec­tric Propul­sion Sys­tem now
being made avail­able to oth­er OEMs, giv­ing atten­dees a first­hand look at the tech­nol­o­gy in a cer­ti­fied,
fly­ing plat­form.

Avail­abil­i­ty

The Inte­grat­ed Motor Invert­er is avail­able now for OEM eval­u­a­tion and inte­gra­tion. The Pow­er
Dis­tri­b­u­tion Unit, bat­tery mod­ules, and Hybrid Propul­sion Sys­tem are in active devel­op­ment, with full
spec­i­fi­ca­tions and avail­abil­i­ty time­lines to fol­low.

Mohit

See Full Bio