Vertical Aerospace Receives Permit to Fly Approval Allowing Piloted Transition Testing to Proceed

Ver­ti­cal Aero­space has received its Per­mit to Fly from the UK Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty (CAA) and com­menced ‘Phase 4 – Tran­si­tion’ flight test­ing, the final stage of its VX4 pro­to­type flight-test pro­gramme.

This reg­u­la­to­ry approval enables Vertical’s flight-test team to begin test­ing the pro­to­type of its VX4 eVTOL aircraft’s defin­ing tran­si­tion manoeu­vre — seam­less­ly shift­ing between hov­er ‘heli­copter mode’ and wing­borne flight ‘air­plane mode’.

Vertical’s Test Pilot, Paul Stone, flew the first flight of this phase yes­ter­day (Thurs­day).

Stu­art Simp­son, CEO, Ver­ti­cal Aero­space, said: “Receiv­ing our Per­mit to Fly and start­ing Phase 4 marks a defin­ing moment for Ver­ti­cal Aero­space. Our team has spent months ver­i­fy­ing every core sys­tem under close reg­u­la­to­ry over­sight, reflect­ing our unique and robust approach to cer­ti­fi­ca­tion. Phase 4 is a crit­i­cal demon­stra­tion of the VX4’s unique tiltro­tor capa­bil­i­ty and a major tech­ni­cal and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion unlock.”

Vertical’s pilot­ed flight test pro­gramme explained:

Phase 1: Teth­ered: the VX4 pro­to­type will per­form sta­bilised hov­er while loose­ly teth­ered to the ground. Com­plet­ed in Sep­tem­ber 2024

Phase 2: Thrust­borne: the VX4 pro­to­type will take-off and land ver­ti­cal­ly and con­duct low speed flight manoeu­vres with lift gen­er­at­ed by the pro­pellers. Com­plet­ed in Feb­ru­ary 2025

Phase 3: Wing­borne: the VX4 pro­to­type will take-off, fly and land like a con­ven­tion­al air­craft, with lift gen­er­at­ed by the wing. Com­plet­ed in Sep­tem­ber 2025
Phase 4: Tran­si­tion: The VX4 pro­to­type will tran­si­tion between thrust­borne and wing­borne flight, and vice ver­sa. Under­way and full tran­si­tion expect­ed before YE 2025

To pre­pare for pilot­ed tran­si­tion flight, Vertical’s engi­neer­ing and test teams recent­ly com­plet­ed exten­sive sim­u­la­tion, ground, and flight test­ing in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the UK CAA, ver­i­fy­ing all 200 Min­i­mum Safe Air­craft require­ments.

In sup­port of our Per­mit to Fly, more than 20,000 pages of safe­ty and tech­ni­cal infor­ma­tion were updat­ed and sub­mit­ted to the CAA. The CAA is work­ing close­ly with the Euro­pean Union Avi­a­tion Safe­ty Agency (EASA) on the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and con­cur­rent val­i­da­tion of the VX4 to the high­est glob­al safe­ty stan­dards required for com­mer­cial use.

Last week, as part of its Q3 Busi­ness & Strat­e­gy update call, Ver­ti­cal shared an ani­ma­tion explain­ing this crit­i­cal step of tran­si­tion and a first look at its new cer­ti­fi­ca­tion air­craft’s lead­ing cab­in size and com­fort.