Vertical Aerospace Advances Hybrid-Electric Testing and Battery Production with Two Key Milestones

Ver­ti­cal Aero­space has announced the start of inte­gra­tion test­ing for its next-gen­er­a­tion hybrid-elec­tric propul­sion sys­tem and the pro­duc­tion of the first all-elec­tric Valo bat­tery from its upgrad­ed assem­bly line. 

These mile­stones, announced ear­li­er today (Tues­day), rep­re­sent con­tin­ued progress across Vertical’s propul­sion and ener­gy sys­tems pro­grammes, both of which under­pin the Company’s all-elec­tric and future hybrid-elec­tric air­craft roadmap.

Stu­art Simp­son, CEO of Ver­ti­cal Aero­space, said: “Hybrid capa­bil­i­ty com­ple­ments our all-elec­tric Valo plat­form and unlocks a broad­er range of civ­il and defence appli­ca­tions.

“At the same time, advanc­ing our bat­tery tech­nol­o­gy and man­u­fac­tur­ing capa­bil­i­ty is crit­i­cal to cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and scal­ing pro­duc­tion. Togeth­er, these mile­stones demon­strate the strength and breadth of our tech­nol­o­gy plat­form.”

Hybrid-elec­tric sys­tem enters test­ing phase

Vertical’s next-gen­er­a­tion hybrid-elec­tric propul­sion sys­tem has begun test­ing on its ded­i­cat­ed Hybrid Propul­sion Eval­u­a­tion Rig (HYPER) at the Company’s Flight Test Cen­tre at Cotswold Air­port, mark­ing a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone after more than two years of devel­op­ment at the Ver­ti­cal Ener­gy Cen­tre.

The HYPER facil­i­ty enables full sys­tem inte­gra­tion and val­i­da­tion of the hybrid pow­er­train, includ­ing the tur­bine, gen­er­a­tor and asso­ci­at­ed elec­tri­cal sys­tems, along­side test­ing of con­trol archi­tec­ture, sys­tem response and fault sce­nar­ios ahead of ground and flight test­ing. 

The Com­pa­ny is work­ing with sev­er­al part­ners to inte­grate a sus­tain­able avi­a­tion fuel (SAF)-compatible gas tur­bine with an elec­tric gen­er­a­tor, while lead­ing devel­op­ment of sys­tem inte­gra­tion, con­trol archi­tec­ture and soft­ware.

This tur­bo­gen­er­a­tor will be inte­grat­ed into a pro­to­type hybrid-elec­tric Valo air­craft for flight test­ing and demon­stra­tions, while also sup­port­ing the devel­op­ment and val­i­da­tion of tech­nolo­gies for future hybrid vari­ants of the air­craft.

These hybrid-elec­tric vari­ants are expect­ed to sig­nif­i­cant­ly expand range, pay­load and oper­a­tional flex­i­bil­i­ty. Ver­ti­cal is tar­get­ing cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of its hybrid-elec­tric vari­ant with the UK Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty (CAA) and the Euro­pean Union Avi­a­tion Safe­ty Agency (EASA).

Bat­tery pro­duc­tion mile­stone sup­ports cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and scale-up

Ver­ti­cal has also reached a key mile­stone in its pro­pri­etary bat­tery pro­gramme, with the first bat­tery pro­duced on its upgrad­ed assem­bly line, launched in March 2026, at the Ver­ti­cal Ener­gy Cen­tre.

The 15,000 sq ft facil­i­ty, already respon­si­ble for the bat­tery sys­tems used in pilot­ed flight test­ing since 2024, has been enhanced with auto­mat­ed, aero­space-grade man­u­fac­tur­ing process­es designed to improve effi­cien­cy, con­sis­ten­cy and per­for­mance, while sup­port­ing cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and future pro­duc­tion.

The bat­tery pro­to­types will go into rig­or­ous envi­ron­men­tal and oper­a­tional test­ing. Bat­tery packs pro­duced on the assem­bly line will be used to sup­port Vertical’s cer­ti­fi­ca­tion air­craft as it pro­gress­es through the final stages of cer­ti­fi­ca­tion with the UK CAA and EASA, as well as pro­vid­ing ini­tial pro­duc­tion capac­i­ty ahead of entry into ser­vice.

 Key tar­get­ed capa­bil­i­ties of Vertical’s hybrid-elec­tric vari­ant:

• Range: Up to 1,000 miles, a 10-fold increase from its all-elec­tric air­craft.
• Pay­load: Con­fig­urable to car­ry up to 1,100 kilo­grams in Valo’s class-lead­ing air­frame capac­i­ty.
• Stealth advan­tages: Low noise and heat sig­na­tures make the hybrid vari­ant well-suit­ed for sen­si­tive mis­sions.
• Crewed and uncrewed capa­bil­i­ties: Hybrid-elec­tric tech­nol­o­gy capa­ble of being deployed autonomous­ly, remote­ly, or with a pilot. Uncrewed capa­bil­i­ties can be seam­less­ly inte­grat­ed into the exist­ing Flight Con­trol Sys­tem being devel­oped by Hon­ey­well. 
• Mis­sion resilience: Built off the Valo’s indus­try-lead­ing redun­dan­cy and dam­age tol­er­ance, boost­ing con­fi­dence for mis­sion-crit­i­cal oper­a­tions.