“Vertical Aerospace Announces Two New Manufacturing Facilities, Updates on Path to Certification”

UK-based Ver­ti­cal Aero­space announced at its ‘Cap­i­tal Mar­kets Day’ this week, two new man­u­fac­tur­ing facil­i­ties along­side an update on the path to cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, reports a press release.

The first new site is at the Cotswold air­port and the sec­ond, an expand­ed pro­duc­tion area at its Avon­mouth bat­tery plant.

: The Cotswold Air­port new facil­i­ty expands Vertical’s pres­ence to 100,000 sq ft and is adja­cent to the exist­ing Flight Test Cen­tre. It will have capac­i­ty to pro­duce 25 or more VX4 air­craft annu­al­ly.

: The new bat­tery pro­duc­tion at an expand­ed Avon­mouth site is adja­cent to Vertical’s exist­ing Ener­gy Cen­tre and will offer triple capac­i­ty. 

This facil­i­ty will pro­vide pro­duc­tion capac­i­ty into 2030 and brings Vertical’s total Ener­gy Cen­tre foot­print to 45,000 sq ft. 

The release explains, “Locat­ing both facil­i­ties along­side exist­ing oper­a­tions reduces inte­gra­tion risk, dri­ves effi­cien­cy, and enables a seam­less ramp from pro­to­type through cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and ini­tial pro­duc­tion air­craft.” 

It adds, “Ver­ti­cal con­tin­ues to progress site selec­tion for its full-rate pro­duc­tion and bat­tery facil­i­ties, with loca­tions in the UK and beyond under con­sid­er­a­tion with a final deci­sion expect­ed in 2026, ready to meet Vertical’s sub­se­quent man­u­fac­tur­ing ramp up.” 

Cotswold Air­port with world’s unwant­ed com­mer­cial air­craft on its air­field. (Cred­it — Cotswold Air­port)

Please Lis­ten to Web­cast

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Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion

News on Vertical’s cer­ti­fi­ca­tion path affirmed the company’s plan to cer­ti­fy the eVTOL VX4 by 2028. This will require USD700 mil­lion in fund­ing. 

The release explains, “The approach of the UK Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty (UK CAA) and Euro­pean Union Avi­a­tion Safe­ty Agency (EASA), who are col­lab­o­rat­ing on eVTOL cer­ti­fi­ca­tion safe­ty stan­dards, front-loads the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion process and min­imis­es late-stage sur­pris­es or delays, pro­vid­ing greater con­fi­dence to Vertical’s plans and time­lines.”

Revised Tar­gets

Ver­ti­cal man­age­men­t’s revised tar­gets for 2030 and beyond, reflects momen­tum over the past year, includ­ing inte­gra­tion of the hybrid-elec­tric busi­ness plan and increased cer­tain­ty around sup­pli­er and man­u­fac­tur­ing plans. This includes:-

: Deliv­er­ies - at least 175 air­craft deliv­ered cumu­la­tive­ly by 2030, ver­sus pri­or guid­ance of 150.

: Man­u­fac­tur­ing - over 225-unit per annum man­u­fac­tur­ing run-rate (Q4-2030), ver­sus pri­or guid­ance of more than 200-unit per annum run-rate (Q4-2030), with plans to scale to tar­get annu­al air­craft deliv­er­ies of 900 in 2035, ver­sus pri­or guid­ance of 700 air­craft deliv­er­ies in the medi­um-term.

: Bat­ter­ies —  Around 45,000 bat­tery units to be deliv­ered in 2035. 

: Mar­gins - Con­sol­i­dat­ed gross mar­gin of 20 per­cent in 2030, ris­ing to around 40 per­cent by 2035.

: Cash Flow - over USD100 mil­lion pos­i­tive oper­at­ing cash flow in 2030, ver­sus pri­or guid­ance of breakeven.

Stu­art Simp­son (Cred­it: Jeff Gilbert)

Stu­art Simp­son, CEO of Ver­ti­cal Aero­space, com­ment­ed, “Since launch­ing Flight­path 2030, we’ve moved from ambi­tion to exe­cu­tion. Pilot­ed flight tests, the hybrid-elec­tric pro­gram, secured facil­i­ties, and greater cost vis­i­bil­i­ty, have mean­ing­ful­ly de-risked our plan and strength­ened the finan­cial out­look.”

He con­tin­ued, “With the final tech­ni­cal proof point — tran­si­tion flight — antic­i­pat­ed by year-end, we now have a clear, effi­cient path to cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion at scale.”

After suc­cess­ful tran­si­tion flight tri­als, the com­pa­ny will begin hybrid-elec­tric flight test­ing in 2026. 

Infor­ma­tion includ­ing fur­ther details on the company’s finan­cial pro­jec­tions is avail­able on:-

Vertical’s Investor Rela­tions web­site.

For more infor­ma­tion

https://vertical-aerospace.com/

(Top image: Ver­ti­cal Aero­space VX4 fly­ing over the Cotswolds)

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