Solvay to develop composite structure of Vertical Aerospace’s VA-1X eVTOL; flight tests of first prototype to begin this year

Solvay will devel­op the com­pos­ite struc­ture of Ver­ti­cal Aero­space’s VA-1X eVTOL air­craft as part of a new part­ner­ship. Togeth­er, both com­pa­nies will now work on devel­op­ing the first fly­ing pro­to­type ahead of flight test­ing in Sep­tem­ber.

Unveiled last year, the VA-1X will be able to car­ry four pas­sen­gers and a pilot, trav­el­ling at cruise speeds of 150mph for a range of 100 miles. It is on course to achieve cer­ti­fi­ca­tion by 2024, with com­mer­cial flights to begin short­ly after.

As part of the agree­ment, Ver­ti­cal Aero­space will be able to access Solvay’s exten­sive com­pos­ite and adhe­sive qual­i­fied prod­uct port­fo­lio and spe­cialised tech­ni­cal and appli­ca­tion sup­port, both at Solvay’s Euro­pean Appli­ca­tion Cen­ters and at its own head office in Bris­tol, UK.

Carme­lo Lo Faro, Pres­i­dent of Solvay Com­pos­ite Mate­ri­als Glob­al Busi­ness Unit, said: “Solvay is proud to part­ner with Ver­ti­cal Aero­space, a pio­neer in sus­tain­able avi­a­tion tech­nolo­gies, whose VA-1X air­craft is set to rev­o­lu­tionise the way we trav­el.

“By pro­vid­ing the per­for­mance required to oper­ate safe­ly and max­i­mize range, while facil­i­tat­ing the process­es need­ed for mass pro­duc­tion, our advanced mate­ri­als will be key enablers to the mass-adop­tion of eVTOLs.”

Ver­ti­cal Aero­space is already a glob­al pio­neer in sus­tain­able avi­a­tion tech­nolo­gies, as one of only a hand­ful of com­pa­nies to have flown two full-scale eVTOL air­craft pro­to­types with UK Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty approval.

Using dis­trib­uted propul­sion and large open rotors that have sig­nif­i­cant­ly low­er tip speeds than on a heli­copter, Ver­ti­cal Aero­space says the VA-1X can achieve noise lev­els 30 times qui­eter than an equiv­a­lent heli­copter.

The com­pa­ny added that pas­sen­gers tak­ing a flight from Brighton to Lon­don could arrive in just 30 min­utes — as opposed to two hours by car or an hour by train.

Michael Cer­ven­ka, CEO of Ver­ti­cal Aero­space, said: “We are incred­i­bly excit­ed to be work­ing hand in hand with Solvay, co-inno­vat­ing to devel­op a light­weight, advanced and sus­tain­able eVTOL thanks to their port­fo­lio of advanced mate­ri­als.”