FIA 2026: Vertical Aerospace Makes History with First Public eVTOL Transition Flight at Farnborough International Airshow

His­toric demon­stra­tion of tran­si­tion flight builds on Farn­bor­ough’s lega­cy of firsts, bring­ing com­mer­cial elec­tric flight one step clos­er to real­i­ty

Builds on recent momen­tum, includ­ing part­ner­ship with Near Earth Auton­o­my and new cus­tomer Sig­ma Air Mobil­i­ty

Ver­ti­cal Aero­space (“Ver­ti­cal”) (NYSE: EVTL), a glob­al aero­space and tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­ny pio­neer­ing elec­tric avi­a­tion, today made his­to­ry by com­plet­ing the first pub­lic elec­tric ver­ti­cal take-off and land­ing (eVTOL) flight at Farn­bor­ough Inter­na­tion­al Air­show, switch­ing from heli­copter mode to air­plane mode and back again.

At 1:46PM local time, in front of a glob­al audi­ence of aero­space lead­ers, reg­u­la­tors, oper­a­tors and media, Simon Davies, Vertical’s Chief Test Pilot, flew Ver­ti­cal’s full-scale pro­to­type, com­plet­ing a tran­si­tion flight by mov­ing from ver­ti­cal take-off to wing­borne cruise and back to ver­ti­cal land­ing. The flight marks anoth­er his­toric first for Farn­bor­ough and a major mile­stone for the advanced air mobil­i­ty indus­try, demon­strat­ing how elec­tric avi­a­tion is mov­ing from con­cept to com­mer­cial real­i­ty.

From Samuel Cody’s pio­neer­ing pow­ered flight in Britain in 1908 to the Air­bus A380’s pub­lic debut in 2006, Farn­bor­ough has been the back­drop to many of avi­a­tion’s defin­ing moments. Today’s demon­stra­tion adds elec­tric avi­a­tion to that lega­cy.

 Stu­art Simp­son, CEO of Ver­ti­cal Aero­space:

“For more than a cen­tu­ry, Farn­bor­ough has been the stage where avi­a­tion’s next chap­ter has been writ­ten. Today, we’re proud that Ver­ti­cal has added anoth­er first to that remark­able his­to­ry. Suc­cess­ful­ly demon­strat­ing a pub­lic tran­si­tion flight here is more than a tech­ni­cal mile­stone — it is proof that elec­tric avi­a­tion is mov­ing from promise to com­mer­cial real­i­ty.”

Kevin Craven, CEO of ADS Group, the UK trade asso­ci­a­tion advanc­ing aero­space, defence and secu­ri­ty and space, adds:

“Vertical’s suc­cess­ful flight is anoth­er impor­tant mile­stone for UK aero­space inno­va­tion and a strong sig­nal of the momen­tum build­ing behind the UK’s advanced air mobil­i­ty sec­tor. It shows how British com­pa­nies are help­ing shape the next gen­er­a­tion of aero­space tech­nolo­gies and turn­ing inno­va­tion into real-world capa­bil­i­ty right here at Farn­bor­ough Air­show.”

Gary Elliott, CEO of Aero­space Tech­nol­o­gy Insti­tute adds:

“Today’s flight by Ver­ti­cal is a sig­nif­i­cant moment in the deliv­ery of eVTOL capa­bil­i­ty and a fan­tas­tic exam­ple of the pio­neer­ing aero­space inno­va­tion hap­pen­ing in the UK. We have been a proud sup­port­er of Vertical’s tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ment for some time through the ATI Pro­gramme and this flight is proof of the trans­for­ma­tive pow­er of gov­ern­ment and indus­try joint­ly sup­port­ing inno­va­tion across the aero­space sup­ply chain.”

Gareth Rogers, CEO, Farn­bor­ough Inter­na­tion­al Air­show:

“Farn­bor­ough Inter­na­tion­al Air­show has always been a place where the future of aero­space is not only imag­ined, but seen for the first time. To wit­ness Ver­ti­cal’s eVTOL air­craft take to the skies here marks an extra­or­di­nary moment for our indus­try, for the his­to­ry of the show and British avi­a­tion. This mile­stone now joins Farnborough’s proud lega­cy of pio­neer­ing ‘firsts’, from and mark air­craft debuts to break­through tech­nolo­gies that have shaped the direc­tion of flight. See­ing Ver­ti­cal Aero­space demon­strate this new era of elec­tric avi­a­tion at Farn­bor­ough is a pow­er­ful reminder of the role that British engi­neer­ing and the air­show con­tin­ues to play as a glob­al stage for inno­va­tion, ambi­tion and progress.”

Ver­ti­cal’s suc­cess­ful demon­stra­tion caps a year of sig­nif­i­cant com­mer­cial and tech­nol­o­gy mile­stones and high­lights the grow­ing momen­tum behind the UK’s advanced air mobil­i­ty sec­tor. Ver­ti­cal recent­ly announced a strate­gic part­ner­ship with Near Earth Auton­o­my to inte­grate advanced autonomous flight capa­bil­i­ty into Valo, sup­port­ing future defence and com­mer­cial appli­ca­tions and today announced Sig­ma Air Mobil­i­ty, an advanced air mobil­i­ty oper­a­tor and mem­ber of the Lux­avi­a­tion Group, as a new cus­tomer.

Ver­ti­cal plans to con­duct flight demon­stra­tions through­out the week at the Farn­bor­ough Inter­na­tion­al Air­show, sub­ject to approved flight con­di­tions. Vis­i­tors can stay up to date with the lat­est demon­stra­tion flight times by join­ing the offi­cial What­sApp chan­nel.

Ver­ti­cal also has its full-scale com­mer­cial mod­el of Valo on dis­play at the show, in Hall 4.