Meet the Drone Pioneers: Skyfly Technologies

Skyfly Technologies designs, builds and sells electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft (E-VTOL) which, initially, will be targeting the general aviation market.

Tell us about when and why Skyfly was set up?

The company was born about five years ago. I was already running a business in the drone sector – called The Drone Company, and alongside that, I was learning to fly helicopters.

I learned an awful lot about electric propulsion and distributed electric propulsion from the drone business and all the benefits that brings from a safety and reliability perspective.

As I was learning to fly helicopters, it quickly became apparent that single-engine helicopters have so many single points of failure, whereas with the electric propulsion technology used in drones, you can have multiple redundancies which make the aircraft safer.

We wanted to look at an aircraft that was manned but had all the safety features of a drone, the glide and efficiency of a fixed-wing plane and also the capability of carrying people.

What is the main focus of the Skyfly operations?

We're developing two versions of the aircraft. One is a two-seat piloted aircraft for private ownership and operation, and then another one, which is an unmanned aircraft, which will be used for a variety of different applications and missions.?

We've spent the last year building the first airworthy airframe which we have just completed and flown recently for the first time. Years have gone into the design of this already. Our initial testing takes the form of tethered fights and then we can move on to manned flight testing.

We’re quite focused on landing and take-off capabilities as, uniquely, our aircraft can take off like an aeroplane on a runway and also achieve vertical take-off and landings. The operations at the moment are heavily focused on flight testing and proving our capabilities.

What are your eVTOLs designed to do and how will they be used?

We are focused on two sectors. One is the private sector and will hopefully see individuals purchase our eVTOLs for personal travel. We envisage it being stored at their home or hanger and they could take off from their garden and fly to wherever they want, to a friend's house, a restaurant, hotel. That sort of journey.

Essentially, we want to create something that's more financially accessible to people, easier to fly than a helicopter, and safer than a helicopter, but with the same capabilities. That means the ability to take-off vertically and land vertically, which gives a lot of freedom in where you can land.

The other sector is defence where our unmanned eVTOLs will be focused. This will be primarily targeted towards logistics, medevac, getting troops in and out, and things like ship-to-shore transfers. We're bidding towards the Royal Navy’s Heavy Lift Drone Challenge. We can carry payloads of up to 172kg and our vehicles have a range of 100 miles which is very attractive to the Navy.

Why will eVTOL be more cost-effective than helicopters??

It isn’t so much about the initial cost, it's about the running costs and depreciation. With helicopters, the servicing and maintenance on them is extremely expensive. For example, with a Robinson R44 you're spending about ￡30,000 pounds a year on average to get 100 hours flying. That is down to fuel and also servicing and maintenance which has to be carried out of every 25, 50 and 100 hours-? costs can go through the roof.

Our aircraft are fully electric and have very few mechanical moving parts which means they're very reliable and require very little maintenance. That's sort of the difference. We envisage early running costs based on 100 hours of flight a year will be around ￡70 instead of the ￡300 you’d get with a helicopter.

Why do you think eVTOL is such a huge opportunity??

It’s mainly the safety element, as I’ve said with distributed electric motors, you can have multiple redundancies. I think lots of people get put off using helicopters due to the safety aspect which is a big part of what we are trying to alleviate with having multiple motors and mechanical control surfaces with large wings which enable you to glide like a normal plane.

There are also the environmental benefits and phasing out the use of fossil fuels - and as the battery technology improves, which it will do, we will start to see those realised when compared to piston or turbine alternatives.

How easy is it to develop eVTOL in the current regulatory landscape in the UK?

We've had a very, very positive experience with the Civil Aviation Authority which allows us to operate under a regulatory framework known as E-Conditions. This enables us to test our vehicles before they are certified. We've had to write what's called an ‘E-Conditions dossier’, which outlines what we're doing, where we're doing it and how.

The start to finish of gaining our approvals probably took only about two to three months. The CAA has been really receptive, they have come to visit us to look at the aircraft. One of the main challenges we came up against was the licensing for such a new and novel aircraft, however, the CAA identified that our aircraft is actually conventionally very similar to a fixed-wing normal airplane so all our pilot licensing comes under those regulations.

I’ve also got exemptions to pilot the aircraft with my experience of having a helicopter and my drone background, and then our CTO, who's a very experienced fixed-wing test pilot, has also received full exemptions. The CAA has been brilliant, to be honest.

Was it difficult to get insurance, how did Moonrock help?

I've used Moonrock before for my other business and I was very pleasantly surprised when they were able to provide a quote on eVTOL as well as drones. I was looking forward to working with them again.

The team were very, very good in understanding exactly what we needed in terms of coverage, but also specific requirements in terms of the fact that we will be a piloted aircraft.

They just understood exactly what we needed. So there was no difficulty at all, we’ve received quotes from other companies that were far more expensive and very limiting on the number of hours we could fly.

What sort of customer is ordering an eVTOL?

So we have sold 36 slots already and the general customer base is a combination of people who have never flown before or have been scared off by helicopters because they're too difficult to fly or they find them too dangerous. Then we also have a large pool of customers who are experienced pilots who see eVTOLs as a new form of aviation that they want to get into.

What’s next for Skyfly??

By the end of this year, we will have finished our flight testing, and then we'll go through the certification process, which we envisage will take between six and eight months with the CAA and by the end of next year we want to be in a position to start selling.

In more general terms, I think by 2026 a lot of the big commercial OEMs will be flying and we should see regular commercial operations with eVTOLs. The future is very exciting!