Light aircraft still look much as they did in the 1970s, and the trainers most students fly, the Cessna 152 and Robinson R22, went into service in that decade. Skyfly Technologies collected $10M in seed money to put something newer in the air.
HICO Investment Group, a growth equity specialist, led the round and Archangel, a European fund focused on next-generation defense technology, came along. That money moves the firm’s Axe, a two-seat machine rising vertically and then flying on wings, out of the prototype stage and toward certification with paying owners.
Washington moved first
Regulators helped. Revised Light Sport rules published by the FAA in July 2026 widened that category to accept electric power, multiple motors and vertical takeoff, a class written for private owners rather than carriers. Skyfly had drawn the Axe to those terms years earlier.
What separates it from rotor-only personal aircraft is a wing. Tilting designs burn as much as four times more energy at cruise because no surface makes lift. The Axe climbs on eight motors fixed at one angle and then flies on its wings, with no swivelling rotors to fail.
Numbers for the class: over 100 miles of range, 60 to 90 minutes aloft, 100 mph cruise, 200 kg of payload and no runway. Running costs are projected near GBP 70 (about $90) an hour, against roughly GBP 300 for the aging trainers.
More than 100 flights, including the first airfield-to-airfield eVTOL hop in Europe, sit behind the prototype, and UK and US experimental permits are in hand. Sixty-one private buyers have ordered, with deliveries due in 2027. Longbow, an uncrewed hybrid with 400-plus miles of range for cargo and medevac work, is also in development.
