SkyDrive Marks a Total of 300 Flights without Incident

Business

SkyDrive Marks a Total of 300 Flights without Incident

2026-07-02 16:02 Last Updated At：16:10

TOYOTA, Japan--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jul 2, 2026--

SkyDrive Inc. (“SkyDrive”), a leading Compact eVTOL (*1) aircraft developer based in Japan, announces the completion of 300 flights of the SKYDRIVE (SkyDrive model SD-05), having reached this milestone over a period of 20 months from November 2024 and June 2026.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260701665489/en/

Through these demonstration flights, we have not only assessed the aircraft’s performance, we have also amassed a large volume of flight data which will, once our aircraft is on the market, help support regular, on-time, commercial operations and decisions over when the aircraft can fly.

While SkyDrive has test facilities both in Toyota City, Aichi Prefecture, and at the Yamaguchi Kirara Expo Memorial Park in Yamaguchi Prefecture, SkyDrive has flown its aircraft in a wide range of different environments to gain experience outside our facilities in airspaces where conditions are closer to the aircraft’s future commercial operations, enabling us to improve the reliability and safety of our aircraft as we look to accelerate steadily forward toward commercialization in 2028.

SkyDrive has published a video on its official YouTube channel of the path toward the successful completion of 300 test flights.

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtyAKTLjgcA

The Significance of Reaching 300 Flights

SkyDrive is developing eVTOLs with the mission of “leading a once-in-a-century mobility revolution”. Our goal is to make simple and convenient air travel a regular part of city life. As we develop the SKYDRIVE, we have not only flown test flights within our own test facilities, we have also demonstrated the capabilities of the aircraft in public, including through flights from vertiports built by third parties, giving stakeholders and local people the opportunity to see the aircraft in operation.

The major demonstration flights performed by SkyDrive are as follows: (*2)

Through a total of 48 flights outside SkyDrive’s test centers, SkyDrive has collected a wealth of operational data that will support on-time operations following the aircraft’s commercialization.

SkyDrive’s Path Forward

Around the world, manufacturers are competing to develop eVTOL aircraft. The industry has already gone beyond the stage of “proving that these aircraft can fly” and is now entering a new phase that includes the flight demonstrations required to confirm commercial viability and the advanced data collection required to accumulate evidence for certification.

The aircraft and operational data accumulated by SkyDrive through 300 completed flights provides a solid foundation to support the regulatory testing required for type certification and the further aircraft development needed for commercialization. As we target the launch of commercial operations in 2028, we will continue to move forwards while always making safety our absolute priority.

Comments

Yugo Fukuhara, Vice President, Director, Project Management Department
The achievement of 300 completed flights is the result of cumulative efforts by our engineers, pilots and operations team, who have all worked continuously with a priority on safety. Throughout the flight test campaign, we have approached each flight with the appropriate degree of caution, ensuring that we can safely complete the flight profile and record the data that we require. We will keep working toward certification and commercialization, making sure we continue to uphold our ongoing focus on safety.

Christopher Rennie, Director, Test Department, Vehicle Development Division
Thank you to everyone who has contributed to the SD-05 flight test campaign. Flight testing is never easy, and reaching 300 safe flights is a meaningful achievement made possible through teamwork, discipline, and commitment across the entire organization. We have faced technical, operational, and schedule challenges, but each flight has strengthened our knowledge, improved our aircraft, and moved us closer to certification. As we look ahead to type certification and the production units coming next year, we recognize that greater challenges are ahead. However, with the same dedication and one-team mindset, we are ready to face them.

About SkyDrive Inc.

SkyDrive is a Japanese compact eVTOL company aiming “to take the lead in the once-in-a-century mobility revolution”. The company began testing eVTOL prototypes in 2014 prior to official incorporation in 2018. Under its future vision for urban transportation, flying in eVTOLs will become a regular part of city life. In 2019, SkyDrive became the first company to fly a crewed eVTOL in Japan. In 2025, the company successfully showcased the eVTOL "SKYDRIVE", the company’s first eVTOL product, with demonstration flights at the Osaka Expo witnessed by thousands of visitors over a one-month period. SkyDrive began production of “SKYDRIVE” in March 2024 at a plant owned by Suzuki Motor Corporation, SkyDrive's official production partner. SkyDrive has been working with civil aviation authorities in Japan and the US to obtain certification for “SKYDRIVE”, with the aim of launching the aircraft into service in 2028. SkyDrive is headquartered in Toyota, Aichi Prefecture, and led by CEO Tomohiro Fukuzawa, an engineer and entrepreneur.

For more information, please visit: https://skydrive.co.jp/en/

Editor’s Note:
(*1) “eVTOL” is an abbreviation for electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing. As the name suggests, eVTOL aircraft can take off and land without a runway. eVTOLs are powered by electricity and incorporate advanced, automatic, flight control technology.

(*2) Related press releases:
Demonstration flights at the Expo 2025 in Osaka, Kansai: https://skydrive.co.jp/en/archives/16292
SkyDrive Completes Extended Summer Demonstration Flight Campaign in Osaka: https://skydrive.co.jp/en/archives/16771
SkyDrive Completes First Demo Flights in Tokyo: https://skydrive.co.jp/en/archives/17702

Vatican declares Society of St. Pius X in schism, excommunicates bishops and invalidates sacraments

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican responded aggressively Thursday to a traditionalist society that consecrated bishops without the pope’s consent, declaring the Society of St. Pius X in schism, excommunicating its bishops and warning its faithful.

The Vatican’s doctrine office went above and beyond the minimal sanctions foreseen by the church’s canon law to respond to the consecrations Wednesday of four new bishops at the society’s Econe, Switzerland, seminary.

The society, known by its acronym SSPX, celebrates the ancient Latin Mass and opposes the modernizing reforms of the Catholic Church, which it considers to be rife with heresies and errors and has accused of straying from the Catholic faith.

In a decree, the Vatican excommunicated the four new bishops and the two bishops that participated in the ceremony. It declared the consecrations a “schismatic act” and declared the society itself had created a schism, or intentional rupture with the Catholic Church.

The Vatican warned the faithful who go to the society’s Masses to stop, declaring “those who adhere formally” to the society are considered themselves schismatic and excommunicated. It also invalidated the sacraments of confession and marriage that the society’s priests administer.

The sanctions, especially those targeting the faithful and the sacraments they can receive, were particularly harsh and reversed concessions the Vatican had granted the SSPX in recent years.

French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre founded the SSPX in 1970 in opposition to the modernizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council. Among other things, the 1960s meetings known as Vatican II revolutionized the church’s relations with other Christians, Jews and people of other faiths and allowed Mass to be celebrated in the vernacular rather than Latin.

Lefebvre consecrated four bishops without papal consent in 1988. The Vatican promptly excommunicated Lefebvre and the four bishops and declared the consecrations a “schismatic act.”

Pope Benedict XVI in 2009 lifted the excommunications as part of his yearslong outreach to the group, but the SSPX today has no legal standing in the church and with Thursday’s decree is declared to be in schism.

The consecrations had posed a crisis for Pope Leo XIV because the American pope has stressed the need for church unity. He has reached out especially to the conservative and traditionalist wing of the church that was in many ways alienated during the Pope Francis pontificate.

But the sanctions imposed Thursday suggest that after nearly five decades of trying to negotiate with the society, the Holy See has had enough.

The SSPX has accused the church of being rife with heresies and errors and that only it is upholding the true faith of Christ. It has justified the consecrations, citing a “state of necessity” to minister to its faithful.

In his homily during the consecrations Wednesday, the Rev. Davide Pagliarani, the SSPX superior, also insisted the consecrations served Leo and the church.

“We are accused of not respecting the pope,” Pagliarani said. “But it is precisely because we love the pope as the vicar of Christ, as the head of the church, that we don’t want to see the pope humiliated anymore, on the side of false shepherds representing false religions.”