UK Civil Aviation Authority Expands Scope of DOA for Vertical Aerospace, “Agrees Certification Co-operation with EASA” 

UK-based Ver­ti­cal Aero­space, announced this week that the scope of its Design Organ­i­sa­tion Approval (DOA) has been expand­ed by the UK Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty (CAA), reports a press release. 

In March 2023, Ver­ti­cal became the first eVTOL devel­op­er to be grant­ed a DOA by the CAA, which autho­ris­es Ver­ti­cal to con­duct design activ­i­ties and issue design approvals with­in the DOA’s scope of approval. This lat­est news broad­ens that scope. A DOA is required to hold a Type Cer­tifi­cate, a pre­req­ui­site for an air­craft to enter into com­mer­cial ser­vice.  

The release explains, “This scope exten­sion enables Vertical’s own engi­neers to sign off com­pli­ance of an increas­ing num­ber of tech­ni­cal areas, includ­ing fur­ther areas relat­ed to the flight con­trol, avion­ics and elec­tri­cal sys­tems. Expand­ing Vertical’s capac­i­ty to car­ry out cer­ti­fi­ca­tion activ­i­ties stream­lines the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion process.” 

After the VX4 pro­to­type crash last August due to faulty pro­pellers, dur­ing a remote­ly pilot­ed flight tri­al, this shows a renewed con­fi­dence from the UKs Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty (CAA), that the eVTOL has the in-house capa­bil­i­ty to obtain cer­ti­fi­ca­tion for the VX4 air­craft to the high­est avi­a­tion safe­ty stan­dards, with safe­ty tar­gets the same as those that large com­mer­cial air­lin­ers adhere to. 

 Ver­ti­cal Aero­space has rapid­ly moved on from last August’s inci­dent

The release con­tin­ues, “Ver­ti­cal will now work with the CAA to expand its DOA priv­i­leges. This will enable the reg­u­la­tor to rely on Ver­ti­cal’s approval for cer­tain activ­i­ties, includ­ing those required for a Per­mit to fly for pilot­ed flight tests on the VX4 pro­gram.” 

Stu­art Simp­son, CEO, Ver­ti­cal Aero­space, remarked, “This is anoth­er pos­i­tive step for­ward in recog­nis­ing that Ver­ti­cal has the engi­neer­ing capa­bil­i­ty to obtain cer­ti­fi­ca­tion for the VX4 air­craft. Our world-class engi­neer­ing and design teams, com­bined with our part­ner­ship with lead­ing aero­space com­pa­nies and our state-of-the-art facil­i­ties in the UK, set us up well to achieve cer­ti­fi­ca­tion to the high­est safe­ty stan­dards in the world.” He added, “See­ing reg­u­la­tors like the CAA and EASA work­ing close­ly togeth­er paves the way for a more seam­less, faster route to cer­ti­fi­ca­tion.”

The release states, “EASA and the CAA have agreed how they will col­lab­o­rate under the tech­ni­cal imple­men­ta­tion pro­ce­dures agreed as part of the UK’s with­draw­al from the EU. Whilst both reg­u­la­tors have been work­ing close­ly already, this sets the foun­da­tions for their cer­ti­fi­ca­tion experts to apply com­mon stan­dards and work togeth­er towards con­cur­rent cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and val­i­da­tion of the VX4 by both author­i­ties.” 

Stu­art Simp­son

In 2023, the CAA announced its inten­tion to adopt EASA’s Means of Com­pli­ance to SC-VTOL, the stan­dards against which Euro­pean and UK man­u­fac­tur­ers design eVTOLs. 

Mean­while, Ver­ti­cal is soon to com­plete the assem­bly of its most advanced full-scale VX4 pro­to­type and will then begin a pilot­ed flight test pro­gram at its Flight Test Cen­tre at Cotswold Air­port. 

For more infor­ma­tion

https://vertical-aerospace.com/

(Top image: Ver­ti­cal Aero­space VX4)

For the lat­est news, insights and con­tent regard­ing the glob­al Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty mar­ket, please join the fol­low­ing eVTOL Insights chan­nels: What­sApp, Face­book, Insta­gram, Spo­ti­fy, Apple Pod­casts, YouTube, X and LinkedIn.