Vertical Aerospace announces certification progress of its VX4 eVTOL aircraft and new regulatory director

The Euro­pean Union Avi­a­tion Safe­ty Agency (EASA) has agreed to con­cur­rent­ly val­i­date the UK CAA’s cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of Ver­ti­cal Aero­space’s VX4 eVTOL air­craft.

In this con­cur­rent val­i­da­tion, the VX4 will be cer­tifi­cat­ed by the UK CAA against their strin­gent safe­ty stan­dards and in com­pli­ance with the sim­i­lar and equal­ly strin­gent stan­dards devel­oped by EASA. Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and val­i­da­tion process­es will run simul­ta­ne­ous­ly in both reg­u­la­to­ry juris­dic­tions, paving the way for the VX4 to be oper­a­tional in both the UK and Europe by 2025.

At the same time as this lat­est announce­ment by Ver­ti­cal Aero­space, the com­pa­ny has also wel­comed for­mer EASA Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion Direc­tor, Trevor Woods, who has joined as Direc­tor – Reg­u­la­to­ry Affairs to help lead the reg­u­la­to­ry engage­ment.

Com­ment­ing on his appoint­ment, he said: “I am delight­ed to join Ver­ti­cal, the eVTOL man­u­fac­tur­er that, I believe, has the edge on its com­peti­tors. Its con­sid­er­able in-house engi­neer­ing exper­tise matched with its unri­valled indus­tri­al part­ner­ships from proven tier-one aero­space sup­pli­ers such as Rolls-Royce, Hon­ey­well, GKN and Leonar­do lend sig­nif­i­cant momen­tum to its cer­ti­fi­ca­tion efforts. I, myself, am look­ing for­ward to fly­ing in the VX4 at the ear­li­est oppor­tu­ni­ty.”

Con­cur­rent EASA/CAA val­i­da­tion

Ver­ti­cal believes this activ­i­ty with both the CAA and EASA will also sup­port swift val­i­da­tion of the VX4 by oth­er inter­na­tion­al reg­u­la­tors, who respect the strin­gent safe­ty stan­dards imposed by the UK and Euro­pean reg­u­la­tors. 

Ver­ti­cal is seek­ing to con­duct sim­i­lar cer­ti­fi­ca­tion val­i­da­tion efforts with oth­er nation­al avi­a­tion author­i­ties where its cus­tomers oper­ate, enabling the VX4 to be flown in these juris­dic­tions. The com­pa­ny has already run project famil­iari­sa­tion work­shops with reg­u­la­tors in key ter­ri­to­ries includ­ing Japan, Brazil and Sin­ga­pore and will also seek val­i­da­tion by the Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion (FAA), enabling entry into ser­vice with US oper­a­tors.

Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion Progress

Vertical’s cer­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­gramme is pro­gress­ing rapid­ly as it tar­gets entry into ser­vice in 2025. It has sub­mit­ted its cer­ti­fi­ca­tion basis pro­pos­al, based on EASA’s estab­lished SC-VTOL cer­ti­fi­ca­tion basis, and expects to have this agreed with the CAA lat­er this year. 

The com­pa­ny has also received notice that its three key nom­i­nat­ed man­agers (Form 4 Hold­ers) have been accept­ed by the reg­u­la­tor as com­pe­tent to hold the roles. These approved man­agers are nec­es­sary for Ver­ti­cal to be grant­ed Design Organ­i­sa­tion Approval (DOA). 

DOA (equiv­a­lent to the FAA’s Organ­i­sa­tion Des­ig­na­tion Autho­ri­sa­tion or ODA) is the approval from the reg­u­la­tor that an aero­space com­pa­ny is cer­ti­fied as being com­pe­tent and respon­si­ble to hold a Type Cer­tifi­cate. Vertical’s DOA, when grant­ed, will cov­er the full scope required to hold a Type Cer­tifi­cate for a com­mer­cial pas­sen­ger car­ry­ing winged eVTOL.

Ver­ti­cal believes this will be of the widest scope an eVTOL man­u­fac­tur­er will have received to date, and expects to receive DOA from the UK reg­u­la­tor lat­er this year. This will be the first for­mal recog­ni­tion from the CAA con­firm­ing Vertical’s com­pe­ten­cy as a VTOL design organ­i­sa­tion and even­tu­al­ly as a Type Cer­tifi­cate hold­er.

Vertical’s key account­able man­agers are Eric Sam­son, Head of Engi­neer­ing; Paul Harp­er, Head of Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and Paul Cot­ton, Head of Inde­pen­dent Sys­tems Mon­i­tor­ing.

Harp­er added: “To have some­one with Trevor’s expe­ri­ence join the team is a boost for us and our cer­ti­fi­ca­tion efforts. We are pleased with the sta­tus of our cer­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­gramme and look for­ward to reach­ing a num­ber of mean­ing­ful mile­stones in our activ­i­ty over the com­ing months, includ­ing the launch of our test flight cam­paign.”