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Vertical Aerospace begins new year with successful piloted thrustborne flight milestone of its VX4 prototype

Ver­ti­cal Aero­space has tak­en anoth­er sig­nif­i­cant step in its test­ing pro­gramme, by suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ing its first pilot­ed thrust­borne flight manoeu­vres. 

In an announce­ment made today (Wednes­day), the com­pa­ny says it is only the sec­ond in the world to achieve pilot­ed thrust­borne flight manoeu­vres with a full-scale vec­tored thrust eVTOL air­craft 

The mile­stone was achieved after the busi­ness received approval from the UK Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty (CAA) to expand its Per­mit to Fly, enabling Ver­ti­cal to progress from pilot­ed thrust­borne hov­er to pilot­ed thrust­borne low-speed flight manoeu­vres at alti­tude.

The lat­est flight includ­ed roll, yaw and spot turn manoeu­vres and was flown by Simon Davies, Vertical’s Chief Test Pilot. 

Stu­art Simp­son, CEO of Ver­ti­cal Aero­space, said: “Start­ing the year with this mile­stone is a fan­tas­tic achieve­ment and tes­ta­ment to the ded­i­ca­tion of our team and part­ners.

“Becom­ing one of only two com­pa­nies glob­al­ly to con­duct pilot­ed thrust­borne flight manoeu­vres in a full-scale vec­tored thrust eVTOL under­scores the progress we’re mak­ing toward our Flight­path 2030 strat­e­gy and our vision to trans­form the way the world moves.

He added: “The team is now focused on com­plet­ing this phase while we pre­pare for the sig­nif­i­cant next step of wing­borne flight.” 

Com­plet­ing the ini­tial pilot­ed thrust­borne manoeu­vres at its Flight Test Cen­tre made Ver­ti­cal only the sec­ond com­pa­ny world­wide to achieve this crit­i­cal step using a full scale vec­tored thrust eVTOL air­craft. 

First thrustborne flight 

Vertical’s VX4 air­craft has now pro­gressed from pilot­ed hov­er flight to pilot­ed, low-speed manoeu­vres using lift gen­er­at­ed by the pro­pellers.

Thrust­borne flights are designed to assess the aircraft’s sta­bil­i­ty, bat­tery effi­cien­cy, con­trol char­ac­ter­is­tics, aero­dy­nam­ics, struc­tur­al and dynam­ic loads and per­for­mance across dif­fer­ent speeds, enabling fur­ther assess­ment of how the VX4 behaves under real-world flight con­di­tions. 

At the same time, Ver­ti­cal will work with the CAA to expand its Per­mit to Fly, clear­ing the path for Phase 3 — wing­borne flight tests.

This phase, which includes fly­ing beyond the air­field bound­aries, will effec­tive­ly serve as a mini-cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of the pro­to­type, lay­ing the ground­work for the VX4’s full cer­ti­fi­ca­tion. 

Strengthening the Team 

To sup­port the grow­ing demands of its flight test pro­gramme, Ver­ti­cal has appoint­ed Tim Eldridge as test pilot.  

With over two decades of flight test expe­ri­ence in the Roy­al Navy, includ­ing test­ing air­craft such as the Sea King, Mer­lin, Chi­nook, and Lynx, Tim brings excep­tion­al exper­tise to the team.

His pri­or roles, includ­ing at Bab­cock, with whom Ver­ti­cal is col­lab­o­rat­ing with on Emer­gency Med­ical Ser­vices (EMS), where Tim was a heli­copter EMS pilot, as well as at Qine­tiQ and Air­bus Heli­copters fur­ther enhance Vertical’s flight test capa­bil­i­ties. 

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Jason Pritchard

Jason Pritchard is the Editor of eVTOL Insights. He holds a BA from Leicester's De Montfort University and has worked in Journalism and Public Relations for more than a decade. Outside of work, Jason enjoys playing and watching football and golf. He also has a keen interest in Ancient Egypt.

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