YZA · Bengaluru, India

The future of vertical lift is being built in India.

YZA develops cutting-edge aerospace technology, starting with autonomous VTOL tiltrotor aircraft.

See the aircraft Join the team

Mission

Hover like a helicopter. Cruise like a plane.

We build runway-free aircraft that fly farther and faster than anything that lifts off vertically today. Every core system is designed, developed and manufactured in India.

Our story

It started with a dream.

In 2012 I set out to build a personal aircraft, a childhood dream. I gave myself a year, then realised how much I didn't know. So I went and learned all of it.

That road ran through a PhD on rotor blades at Penn State, the airframe of a novel aircraft at Kitty Hawk, and core propulsion IP and certification work at Joby Aviation. Kitty Hawk had every resource it could want, and it still closed in 2022.

Capital alone doesn't build aircraft. People do.

My co-founder Tanmay Mathur led drive systems on Leonardo's AW609 tiltrotor and now teaches aerospace engineering at IIT Kanpur. We are both IIT graduates with aerospace PhDs from Penn State. Between us we cover vectored-thrust aircraft end to end: airframe, propulsion, drive systems and certification.

India has no team like that to hire from, so we are building one. YZA is that team, in Bengaluru, building a turbine tiltrotor around India's first privately developed turboprop.

Keerti Prakash, PhDFounder & Chief Engineer

Rendering of YZA tiltrotors over mountains, a naval fleet and a city at night

The roadmap

One architecture.
Three domains.

  1. Rendering of a YZA tiltrotor over Himalayan peaks
    01 · Now

    Guard the frontiers

    Runway-free reach to the high Himalaya and forward posts where helicopters strain and drones fall short.

  2. Rendering of YZA tiltrotors flying over a naval fleet
    02 · Next

    Own the seas and skies

    Heavier lift from ship decks, across the Indo-Pacific, on the same proven architecture.

  3. Rendering of air mobility routes over an Indian city at night
    03 · Then

    Move the cities

    Quiet, clean air mobility over India's cities, certified on a design already proven in service.

Rendering of a YZA tiltrotor in a dark hangar

The aircraft

A tiltrotor, designed from a clean sheet.

Rotors tilt up to take off and land anywhere. They tilt forward to fly on the wing, at airplane speed and range. No runway, no pilot on board.

  • Vertical take-off
  • Wing-borne cruise
  • Turbine powered
  • Autonomous

Technology

The hard parts, built in-house.

Most new aircraft buy their propulsion and spend years working around it. We design the systems that decide whether a tiltrotor flies.

Rendering of a YZA turboprop engine with carbon proprotor
Turboprop propulsion unit · render
  • Tilt

    Rotor tilt architecture

    The mechanism that swings thrust through ninety degrees, carrying the loads of conversion.

  • Power

    Turbine propulsion

    Compact gas turbines with a thrust-to-weight ratio built for vertical lift.

  • Lift

    Proprotor blades

    Composite blades tuned for both hover and high-speed cruise.

  • Control

    Flight control

    Our own flight computer and control laws, from engine control to autonomy.

Team

Built by engineers who have done it before.

Fewer than ten living engineers have led a tiltrotor programme. YZA's founders worked inside the two that matter today.

Keerti Prakash in the Joby Aviation flight-test hangar
Joby flight-test hangar

Founder & Chief Engineer

Keerti Prakash, PhD

Lead propeller designer and propulsion subject-matter expert at Joby Aviation. Airframe design at Kitty Hawk. PhD on US Army rotor blades, Penn State.

LinkedIn
Tanmay Mathur with the Leonardo AW609 tiltrotor
With the AW609 tiltrotor, Leonardo

Co-founder · Drive Systems

Tanmay Mathur, PhD

Drive systems on the Leonardo AW609 tiltrotor. Jet-engine power gearbox at GE Research. Faculty in Aerospace Engineering, IIT Kanpur.

LinkedIn
  • Joby Aviation
  • Leonardo AW609
  • GE Research
  • Kitty Hawk
  • Penn State
  • IIT Kanpur

Newsroom

In the news.

Finalists on stage at Vande Bharatam, an Adani Group innovation initiative

Recognition · Vande Bharatam

YZA named in the Top 50 of 26,000 at Vande Bharatam

Vande Bharatam, an Adani Group initiative, is India's largest grassroots innovation movement. YZA was selected from more than 26,000 entries and pitched on stage to Karan Adani and Flipkart CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy.

Video · Full pitch Watch YZA's pitch at Vande Bharatam
Rendering of YZA tiltrotors flying over a mountain valley at dusk

Careers

Join at ground zero.

We are building an elite aerospace team in Bengaluru, measured against the best in the world. Propulsion, controls, embedded systems, test and integration.

View open roles

Contact

Work with us.

Partnerships & programmes

info@yzacorp.com

Engineers & visionaries

Open roles in Bengaluru