Vertical Aerospace Ramps Up Progress Flying Its Full-Scale Prototype, with 10 Flights Now Already Completed

Ver­ti­cal Aero­space has announced sig­nif­i­cant progress in its pilot­ed tran­si­tion flight test­ing phase, achiev­ing key mile­stones since receiv­ing its Per­mit to Fly from the UK Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty (CAA) last month.

The full-scale pro­to­type has com­plet­ed ten flights since this Per­mit to Fly was issued on Novem­ber 13th, expand­ing the major­i­ty of the tran­si­tion enve­lope, includ­ing accel­er­a­tion and decel­er­a­tion through a wide range of speeds and tilt posi­tions.  

With the final 10 per cent of tilt tran­si­tion remain­ing after all test phas­es to date, full pilot­ed tran­si­tion is expect­ed in ear­ly 2026. This reflects the struc­tured pro­gres­sion of the test pro­gramme along­side lim­it­ed flight-test win­dows and weath­er con­straints at this stage. 

Stu­art Simp­son, CEO of Ver­ti­cal Aero­space, said: “Our team con­tin­ues to make excel­lent progress as we close in on full pilot­ed tran­si­tion flight. Achiev­ing this lev­el of per­for­mance under CAA over­sight is a major val­i­da­tion of our engi­neer­ing approach and a crit­i­cal mile­stone as we move toward cer­ti­fi­ca­tion.

“These results give us real con­fi­dence in the aircraft’s capa­bil­i­ties and in the path ahead as we pre­pare for the next phase of test­ing in the new year.” 

Recent flights are deliv­er­ing valu­able data as the team expands the flight enve­lope and refines the flight-con­trol and EPU soft­ware.

Sev­er­al first-time achieve­ments have been com­plet­ed, includ­ing in-flight deploy­ment and stow of the rear pro­pellers, spin-up dur­ing wing­borne flight, and prop-hold func­tion­al­i­ty, mark­ing mean­ing­ful steps for­ward in val­i­dat­ing the aircraft’s behav­iour through the tran­si­tion regime. 

Ver­ti­cal is con­duct­ing pilot­ed tran­si­tion test­ing under full CAA over­sight and has recent­ly been grant­ed addi­tion­al priv­i­leges by the reg­u­la­tor to approve Flight Con­di­tions and issue its own Per­mits to Fly under defined cir­cum­stances.