Vertical Aerospace Opens New Assembly Centre for Valo Aircraft

Ver­ti­cal Aero­space has opened a new Air­craft Assem­bly Cen­tre at Cotswold Air­port in the UK, mark­ing the company’s move from pro­to­type devel­op­ment and flight test­ing towards cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and ear­ly pro­duc­tion of its Valo elec­tric ver­ti­cal take-off and land­ing (eVTOL) air­craft.

The facil­i­ty adds 60,000 square feet of assem­bly and oper­a­tional space to Vertical’s exist­ing site at the air­port. The com­pa­ny has invest­ed £1.5 mil­lion in the cen­tre, bring­ing its total foot­print at Cotswold Air­port to approx­i­mate­ly 130,000 square feet across engi­neer­ing, air­craft assem­bly, ground oper­a­tions and flight test­ing.

The new cen­tre will ini­tial­ly be used to assem­ble cer­ti­fi­ca­tion-con­form­ing Valo air­craft for com­pli­ance demon­stra­tion and ver­i­fi­ca­tion test­ing. Ver­ti­cal expects assem­bly of the first cer­ti­fi­ca­tion air­craft to begin in the fourth quar­ter of 2027 as it works towards UK Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty Type Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion in 2029.

The facil­i­ty will also sup­port the con­ver­sion of one of Vertical’s exist­ing pro­to­type air­craft for hybrid-elec­tric flight test­ing, planned for the first half of 2027. The com­pa­ny is devel­op­ing the hybrid-elec­tric con­fig­u­ra­tion for appli­ca­tions requir­ing greater range and mis­sion flex­i­bil­i­ty.

Fol­low­ing cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, the Air­craft Assem­bly Cen­tre is expect­ed to sup­port ini­tial cus­tomer deliv­er­ies. Ver­ti­cal says the facil­i­ty has capac­i­ty to assem­ble more than 25 Valo air­craft per year dur­ing the ear­ly pro­duc­tion phase.

Assem­bly at Cotswold Air­port will involve inte­grat­ing com­po­nents from sev­er­al sup­pli­ers, includ­ing Sonaca air­frame struc­tures, Evoli­to elec­tric propul­sion units and Hon­ey­well Aero­space flight-con­trol and air­craft-man­age­ment sys­tems. Ver­ti­cal is also incor­po­rat­ing its own bat­tery sys­tems.

Locat­ing assem­bly along­side engi­neer­ing and flight-test oper­a­tions is intend­ed to short­en the process between final assem­bly and test­ing while allow­ing man­u­fac­tur­ing and engi­neer­ing teams to respond more quick­ly to issues iden­ti­fied dur­ing flight test­ing.

High­er-vol­ume man­u­fac­tur­ing is planned to take place at a sep­a­rate full-scale pro­duc­tion facil­i­ty. Ver­ti­cal expects to announce plans for that site dur­ing the fourth quar­ter of 2026.

The com­pa­ny is also expand­ing its Ver­ti­cal Ener­gy Cen­tre, which is expect­ed to increase bat­tery pro­duc­tion capac­i­ty over time. The assem­bly and bat­tery facil­i­ties form part of a staged approach to build­ing the man­u­fac­tur­ing capa­bil­i­ty required for Valo cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and ear­ly deliv­er­ies.

Thomas Sleightholm

Thomas is a con­tent writer for eVTOL Insights, cov­er­ing all aspects of the glob­al Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty ecosys­tem. Got a sto­ry for him? Please send an email to editorial@evtolinsights.com

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