Vertical Aerospace today announced that its latest full-scale prototype aircraft has completed its maiden piloted flight at the company's Flight Test Center in the UK.
The flight follows the issuance of a new Permit to Fly from the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) after extensive ground testing and aircraft validation activities. Meanwhile, the company's existing prototype continues transition flight testing, having completed multiple piloted transition flights.
The new prototype is the final aircraft to join Vertical's flight test fleet before the Company completes Critical Design Review (CDR), a major program milestone that establishes the design baseline for certification. Following CDR, Vertical will begin preparations for assembly of its first pre-production aircraft as it continues toward certification and commercial service.
This aircraft doubles the company’s flight testing capacity and supports additional public demonstrations this year. Following the completion of all flight test phases - thrustborne, wingborne and transition flight - in its all-electric configuration, Vertical intends to retrofit this prototype for hybrid-electric flight testing. The hybrid-electric variant is expected to support applications demanding greater range and payload capability across defense, logistics, and wider commercial sectors.
The prototype shares the same configuration as Vertical's current full-scale aircraft, which has already completed all flight test phases. Vertical's flight test program is built around full-scale, piloted prototype aircraft with architecture, systems and flight characteristics closely aligned to the production-standard Valo aircraft, enabling the company to validate the technologies, systems integration and flight models that will support certification.
