Japanese aircraft developer SkyDrive has successfully accelerated its SD-05 electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft to 100km/h, a speed the company identifies as a requirement for commercial inter-urban transport.

The high-speed flight test campaign verified the aircraft’s stability, controllability, and the performance of its propulsion and flight control systems. The SD-05 uses a multicopter design with 12 independent rotors and no fixed wings, a configuration intended to provide flexibility for takeoff and landing in dense urban environments.

The data gathered from these tests will be used to support the company’s application for type certification. SkyDrive aims to launch commercial operations in 2028, following demonstration flights at the Osaka Expo. The aircraft is currently being produced at a facility owned by Suzuki Motor Corporation, SkyDrive’s official production partner.

The company stated that the 100km/h milestone confirms that its aircraft architecture functions as designed during high-speed forward flight. Engineers used real-time data from low- and mid-speed flights to tune the flight control systems before expanding the flight profile.

“The industry is currently moving beyond the phase of demonstrating that such aircraft can actually fly and into a more advanced phase of gathering the evidence required to show that the aircraft can operate stably at high speed,” the company said in a statement attributed to its development team.