Vertical Aerospace is targeting 2030 for integrating the first commercial flights of its Valo eVTOL into the London Heathrow air traffic management system, according to CEO Stuart Simpson, Chief Executive Officer, talking at the opening of the company’s new Valo manufacturing plant in Cirencester, the UK. Initial flights will use current ATM systems and procedures but, according to Simpson, scaling eVTOL operations will require a new set of digital flight rules to integrate vertiport demand and capacity balancing with tactical air traffic control operations.
The company has received UK30 million in backing from the UK government’s Future of Flight industry group to help redefine the rules to allow for digitally-enabled advanced air mobility aircraft.
“NATS (the UK’s national air navigation service provider) is very keen to fly this aircraft in and out of Heathrow, the most complex airspace in the world,” said Stuart Simpson. “With digital flight rules (DFR) this becomes quite easy….In this area we in Europe are way ahead of the USA. With DFR it’s quite simple: just plug in the take off and it will schedule every aircraft to land on time. We are a fully digital enabled aircraft.”
The Valo’s Harmony flight control system from Honeywell will be built with autonomy in mind; Vertical Aerospace has formed a strategic partnership with Near Earth Autonomy to introduce advanced uncrewed and autonomous flight capabilities to the Valo platform from the outset to allow for autonomous flight once the rules are in place.
The new Valo manufacturing centre, which will manufacture production aircraft used for certification, adds 60,000 square feet of operational and aircraft assembly space to Vertical’s existing Cotswold Airport campus. Vertical is working with the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) towards its target of achieving Type Certification in 2029. Assembly of the first certification-conforming aircraft is expected to begin in Q4, 2027. The centre will also be used to retrofit one of the company’s prototype aircraft for hybrid-electric flight testing in the first half of 2027. The UK Ministry of Defence recently confirmed its interest in Vertical’s hybrid-electric and autonomous capabilities.
“Following certification, the Centre is expected to support Vertical’s initial customer deliveries with capacity to assemble more than 25 Valo aircraft annually during the early-production phase,” said the company in a press statement. Higher-volume manufacturing will be carried out at a separate, full-scale production facility, plans for which Vertical expects to announce in the fourth quarter of 2026.
(Image: Vertical Aerospace X-4 eVTOL prototype in flight – image: Philip Butterworth-Hayes)