Vertical Aerospace Wins Proof-Of-Concept Grant To Advance Emergency Medical Services Capabilities For Singapore

Ver­ti­cal Aero­space has been award­ed a Proof-of-con­cept (POC) grant by Hatch, an inno­va­tion cen­tre of Singapore’s Home Team Sci­ence & Tech­nol­o­gy Agency (HTX) for pub­lic safe­ty, which will enable Ver­ti­cal to devel­op, test and val­i­date an Emer­gency Med­ical Ser­vices (EMS) use case for its Valo eVTOL air­craft.

The com­pa­ny was select­ed as a win­ner of the ‘Dimen­sion X Cohort 7 Chal­lenge’, which is focused on how elec­tric and hybrid-elec­tric ver­ti­cal flight could sup­port time-crit­i­cal med­ical response for remote island areas around Sin­ga­pore. 

Ver­ti­cal was cho­sen fol­low­ing a com­pet­i­tive selec­tion process, under­scor­ing the safe­ty-first design, cab­in mis­sion flex­i­bil­i­ty and cred­i­ble cer­ti­fi­ca­tion approach of the Valo air­craft. 

Stu­art Simp­son, CEO Ver­ti­cal Aero­space, said: “We are proud to work close­ly with Singapore’s pub­lic-sec­tor safe­ty and secu­ri­ty experts to explore how elec­tric and hybrid-elec­tric air­craft could sup­port emer­gency response oper­a­tions safe­ly and effec­tive­ly. This is an impor­tant step in mak­ing AAM a real­i­ty in the region.”

Under the pro­gramme, Ver­ti­cal will work with HTX, Hatch and oper­a­tional stake­hold­ers to:

• Devel­op a detailed EMS con­cept of oper­a­tions (ConOps) aligned with real oper­a­tional and reg­u­la­to­ry require­ments
• Oper­a­tional insights to eval­u­ate med­ical cab­in con­fig­u­ra­tions for patient trans­port and in-flight care
• Con­duct a proof-of-con­cept flight demon­stra­tion to assess mis­sion fea­si­bil­i­ty, safe­ty and response times

The project will run through April 2026 and will include col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Sin­ga­pore Home Team to assess and tri­al how eVTOL and VTOL air­craft could com­ple­ment exist­ing emer­gency response sys­tems and poten­tial­ly help improve patient out­comes in crit­i­cal sce­nar­ios. 

The pro­gramme rep­re­sents a foun­da­tion­al step toward longer-term col­lab­o­ra­tion in explor­ing the intro­duc­tion of safe, oper­a­tional Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty (AAM) appli­ca­tions beyond tri­als and into real ser­vice in Sin­ga­pore.

The ini­tia­tive aligns with Singapore’s efforts to devel­op the AAM indus­try, led by the Sin­ga­pore Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment Board (EDB) and sup­port­ed by the Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty of Sin­ga­pore (CAAS). These include enabling the safe intro­duc­tion of next-gen­er­a­tion air­craft and grow­ing the AAM ecosys­tem in Sin­ga­pore. 

Shao Hong Mok, Cen­tre Direc­tor (Hatch) and Senior VP, Inno­va­tions (TechX Ven­tures), added: “Through the Dimen­sion X Chal­lenge, HTX part­ners indus­try inno­va­tors to explore how emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies can respon­sive­ly address real oper­a­tional needs.

“Our col­lab­o­ra­tion with Ver­ti­cal Aero­space allows us to assess the poten­tial of Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty for emer­gency med­ical response, while main­tain­ing a strong focus on safe­ty, reg­u­la­tion and oper­a­tional readi­ness.”