Vertical Aerospace and BETA Technologies to take part in Farnborough International Airshow’s Flying Display

Farn­bor­ough Inter­na­tion­al Air­show has announced the first of many air­craft and teams tak­ing part in its 2026 fly­ing dis­play, which includes eVTOL OEMs Ver­ti­cal Aero­space and BETA Tech­nolo­gies.

Organ­is­ers have said the dis­play will be its ‘largest and most diverse in decades.’ and under­lines Farn­bor­ough’s sta­tus as an inter­na­tion­al stage for aero­space, bring­ing togeth­er air­craft, teams and man­u­fac­tur­ers from the Unit­ed States, Unit­ed King­dom, con­ti­nen­tal Europe and Latin Amer­i­ca, with many more to be announced. 

Ver­ti­cal will fly its VA-1X pro­to­type, while BETA’s CX300 — the mod­el which flew at Le Bour­get at last year’s Paris Air Show — will be fly­ing as well.

Both com­pa­nies have already flown at pub­lic shows in recent years. In July 2025, Ver­ti­cal com­plet­ed the world’s first air­port-to-air­port pilot­ed flight by a full-scale, winged tilt-rotor eVTOL designed for com­mer­cial ser­vice. 

Fol­low­ing Flight Con­di­tions and Per­mit to Fly approvals from the UK Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty (CAA), the VX4 pro­to­type flew 17 miles from Vertical’s Flight Test Cen­ter at Cotswold Air­port, to RAF Fair­ford. The air­craft was then on pub­lic dis­play at the Roy­al Inter­na­tion­al Air Tat­too (RIAT).

BETA’s ALIA mod­el­which opened the fly­ing dis­play each day in Paris last year was con­duct­ing a Euro­pean tour, start­ing at Shan­non on the west coast of Ire­land and end­ed in July when the air­craft was deliv­ered to launch cus­tomer Bris­tow in Nor­way.

Head­lin­ing the dis­play across the five-day event is the U.S. Air Force F‑35A Light­ning II Demon­stra­tion Team, per­form­ing its only pub­lic dis­play in Europe this year. The team will be show­cas­ing the unmatched per­for­mance, agili­ty, and advanced capa­bil­i­ties of the F‑35A, the Air Force’s pre­mier fifth-gen­er­a­tion mul­ti­role fight­er.

The first air­craft and teams announced in the fly­ing dis­play include:  

U.S. Air Force F‑35A Light­ning II Demon­stra­tion Team

Rolls Royce Vick­ers Super­ma­rine Spit­fire PR.Mk.XIX

RAF Eurofight­er Typhoon FGR4 (Fly­past)

Czech Air Force L‑159 (Fly­past)

Air­bus A350-1000 

BETA Tech­nolo­gies CX300 

Bom­bardier GLOBAL 8000

Embraer S.A. C390 Mil­le­ni­um

GE Aero­space — Saab 340B

Ver­ti­cal Aero­space VA-1X 

Ulti­mate War­Bird Flights P‑51D Mus­tang 

The Star­lings Aer­o­bat­ic Team 

The Fal­cons – RAF Para­chute Dis­play Team 

Sta­t­ic air­craft will include the Czech Air Force’s JAS-39 Gripen, DHL Air UK’s B777 200LRMF, BETA Tech­nolo­gies’ MV250, Embraer S.A. 195 E2, GE Aerospace’s B‑747–400, Gen­er­al Atom­ic AeroTec Sys­tems’ Do228 NXT and many more. 

Tak­ing place from July 20th to 24th, Farn­bor­ough Inter­na­tion­al Air­show will see glob­al aero­space and defence lead­ers return to Hamp­shire, Unit­ed King­dom, for five days of unri­valled oppor­tu­ni­ties to dis­cov­er the lat­est pio­neer­ing tech­nol­o­gy and engi­neer­ing, announce his­toric part­ner­ships, and col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly work towards the cumu­la­tive sus­tain­able aero­space vision.  

On Fri­day, July 24th, the air­show will then wel­come thou­sands of young peo­ple for a ded­i­cat­ed STEM day, called Pio­neers of Tomor­row, inspir­ing the next gen­er­a­tion of indus­try lead­ers.

The day will include ded­i­cat­ed fea­tures and activ­i­ty, includ­ing live enter­tain­ment, sim­u­la­tors, Meet The Pilot ses­sions, speak­er pro­gramme, STEM activ­i­ties and Careers Fair and dig­i­tal Job Board to adver­tise appren­tice­ships, grad­u­ate schemes and entry-lev­el roles, as well as com­pe­ti­tions and on-stand expe­ri­ences tar­get­ed at young peo­ple. 

For the cur­rent air­craft list, vis­it: https://www.farnboroughairshow.com/the-show/aircraft-listing/

To pur­chase your air­show tick­ets or for more infor­ma­tion, vis­it: https://www.farnboroughairshow.com/ 

Is Your Com­pa­ny Head­ing to Farn­bor­ough?

eVTOL Insights will be head­ing to Farn­bor­ough and is invit­ing com­pa­nies plan­ning to attend the oppor­tu­ni­ty to sit in front of the cam­era with Exec­u­tive Edi­tor Jason Pritchard as part live, on-site video inter­views.

Each video will be about 10 — 12 min­utes long and record­ed as part of the brand’s cov­er­age at the air show. It will give com­pa­nies the chance the share indus­try insights, prod­uct updates and com­pa­ny roadmaps with a glob­al audi­ence.

Spaces are fill­ing up fast, so please email Sam Brom­ley for more infor­ma­tion (sam@evtolinsights.com)