WATCH: Vertical Aerospace completes two-way piloted transition flight in a full-scale tilt-rotor eVTOL aircraft

Ver­ti­cal Aero­space has suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ed a his­toric two-way pilot­ed tran­si­tion flight. 

On Tues­day of this week (April 14th), the com­pa­ny became the sec­ond glob­al­ly to com­plete a two-way pilot­ed tran­si­tion flight in a full-scale tiltro­tor eVTOL air­craft, and the first to do so under civ­il avi­a­tion Design Organ­i­sa­tion Approval reg­u­la­to­ry over­sight. 

Chief Test Pilot Simon Davies com­plet­ed the flight, tran­si­tion­ing from ver­ti­cal take-off to wing­borne cruise and back to ver­ti­cal land­ing, all in one con­tin­u­ous flight. This mile­stone builds on Vertical’s thrust­borne tran­si­tion on April 2nd and marks the com­ple­tion of two-way tran­si­tion, the defin­ing capa­bil­i­ty of eVTOL avi­a­tion.

To put this into per­spec­tive, tran­si­tion flight val­i­dates the tech­nol­o­gy which will enable Valo, Vertical’s com­mer­cial air­craft, to take off ver­ti­cal­ly from a city-cen­tre ver­ti­port or rooftop with pas­sen­gers, fly effi­cient­ly at speed like an air­plane, and land ver­ti­cal­ly at its des­ti­na­tion with­out a run­way.

The com­pa­ny says unlocks planned real-world routes such as Canary Wharf to Heathrow or JFK to Man­hat­tan, mak­ing them oper­a­tional­ly and com­mer­cial­ly viable.

Stu­art Simp­son, CEO, Ver­ti­cal Aero­space, said: “This is now the most sig­nif­i­cant tech­ni­cal mile­stone in our his­to­ry. Full pilot­ed tran­si­tion is the most crit­i­cal and com­plex chal­lenge in eVTOL devel­op­ment, and we’ve achieved it under more rig­or­ous reg­u­la­to­ry over­sight than any­one in the cat­e­go­ry.

“We’re not just par­tic­i­pat­ing in this indus­try — we are help­ing to define it. Our focus now is on exe­cut­ing our roadmap and bring­ing cer­ti­fied elec­tric flight into com­mer­cial ser­vice.” 

Path to Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion

As with all of Ver­ti­cal’s flight tests since 2023, this mile­stone was achieved under the direct over­sight of the UK Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty (CAA), which is work­ing in close col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Euro­pean Union Avi­a­tion Safe­ty Agency (EASA) toward Type Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of Valo. Test­ing is con­duct­ed under Vertical’s Design Organ­i­sa­tion Approval, a pre-req­ui­site for entry into ser­vice. 

With all phas­es of flight now proven, ver­ti­cal take-off, wing­borne flight and tran­si­tion between the two, Ver­ti­cal is mov­ing into the next stage of cer­ti­fi­ca­tion test­ing.

This will include crit­i­cal design review, when the air­craft design is locked, fol­lowed by the build of sev­en pre-pro­duc­tion Valo air­craft in the UK for com­pli­ance and ver­i­fi­ca­tion test­ing with the CAA and EASA.

Gian­car­lo Buono, Group Direc­tor Safe­ty & Air­space Reg­u­la­tion at the UK Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty, said: “New tech­nol­o­gy is unlock­ing new oppor­tu­ni­ties for the aero­space indus­try, and will reshape how peo­ple trav­el.

“This mile­stone for Ver­ti­cal Aero­space shows how far and fast new avi­a­tion inno­va­tions are pro­gress­ing.

“Effec­tive and pro­por­tion­ate reg­u­la­tions are sup­port­ing ground­break­ing inno­va­tion and putting new tech­nolo­gies in our skies. We will con­tin­ue to work with and sup­port the indus­try to ensure that emerg­ing avi­a­tion tech­nolo­gies can devel­op safe­ly.”

Ver­ti­cal is tar­get­ing cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of Valo in 2028 to the high­est safe­ty stan­dards in the cat­e­go­ry, with entry into ser­vice expect­ed short­ly there­after.

The cer­ti­fi­ca­tion approach is designed to be trans­fer­able to oth­er reg­u­la­tors, includ­ing the US Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion (FAA), Brazil’s Nation­al Civ­il Avi­a­tion Agency (ANAC) and the Japan Civ­il Avi­a­tion Bureau (JCAB), sup­port­ing glob­al deploy­ment with air­line and oper­at­ing part­ners includ­ing Amer­i­can Air­lines, Avolon, Bris­tow, GOL and Japan Air­lines. 

Steve John­son, Vice Chair and Chief Strat­e­gy Offi­cer, Amer­i­can Air­lines, said: “Advanced air mobil­i­ty rep­re­sents a nat­ur­al exten­sion of American’s broad­er com­mit­ment to inno­va­tion and shap­ing the next era of avi­a­tion.

“As both an investor and long-term sup­port­er of Ver­ti­cal Aero­space, we share a clear ambi­tion to make safe, scal­able, and sus­tain­able eVTOL flight a real­i­ty, and today’s news is a foun­da­tion­al step toward that end. Togeth­er, we’re not just imag­in­ing the future of trav­el, we’re active­ly build­ing it.”

Bob Bud­decke, pres­i­dent, Elec­tron­ic Solu­tions, Hon­ey­well Aero­space, added: “Suc­cess­ful tran­si­tion flight rep­re­sents mean­ing­ful progress not only for Ver­ti­cal, but for the entire advanced air mobil­i­ty indus­try. 

“Our Com­pact Fly-by-Wire team worked close­ly with Vertical’s team to help enable the suc­cess­ful flight, and we expect count­less more to come. Vertical’s progress under­scores the strength of our joint engi­neer­ing approach and the impor­tance of dis­ci­plined sys­tem inte­gra­tion in bring­ing next-gen­er­a­tion air­craft to mar­ket.”

A Major Oppor­tu­ni­ty for the UK

As Europe’s only eVTOL devel­op­er to achieve full pilot­ed tran­si­tion, this mile­stone rein­forces the UK’s posi­tion at the fore­front of next-gen­er­a­tion aero­space.

Ver­ti­cal expects its UK-based man­u­fac­tur­ing and sup­ply chain to sup­port thou­sands of high-skilled jobs and sig­nif­i­cant export growth, with its ecosys­tem pro­ject­ed to grow to over 2,000 jobs by 2035.  

UK Sec­re­tary of State for Busi­ness and Trade, Peter Kyle, said: “This is a fan­tas­tic mile­stone not only for Ver­ti­cal, but for the UK’s posi­tion in the future of aero­space as we con­tin­ue to lead the way on zero emis­sion flight.

“Through our Indus­tri­al Strat­e­gy and the Aero­space Tech­nol­o­gy Insti­tute we’re back­ing com­pa­nies like Ver­ti­cal who are demon­strat­ing the kind of inno­va­tion, engi­neer­ing excel­lence and export poten­tial that can keep Britain at the fore­front of the glob­al aero­space indus­try, and cre­ate high-skilled jobs for local peo­ple.”

Pro­gress­ing Key Strate­gic Mile­stones

Ver­ti­cal will con­tin­ue its focus on exe­cut­ing key strate­gic mile­stones over the next twelve months and beyond. These include pub­lic flight demon­stra­tions, includ­ing at Farn­bor­ough Inter­na­tion­al Air­show in July, pro­gres­sion of the hybrid-elec­tric demon­stra­tor, expan­sion of the Ver­ti­cal Ener­gy Cen­ter, advance­ment of the man­u­fac­tur­ing facil­i­ty, and pro­duc­tion of the first full-scale Valo cer­ti­fi­ca­tion air­craft.