Vertical Aerospace has completed a piloted thrustborne transition with a full-scale eVTOL aircraft at its Flight Test Centre at Cotswold Airport in the UK. The test flight took place on April 2, 2026, with test pilot Paul Stone at the controls.
The aircraft, a prototype related to Vertical’s Valo eVTOL design, lifted off vertically using fixed vertical lift units. It then tilted its front propellers forward to generate thrust, accelerating smoothly into energy-efficient wingborne cruise while the rear propellers stowed. The flight ended with a conventional runway landing.
Valo employs a configuration with tilting propellers for forward flight and fixed vertical lift units, which focuses the main technical challenges on the transition phase between vertical and wingborne modes. This one-way thrustborne transition represents the first half of the full two-way sequence required for operations, which also includes deceleration back to vertical landing without a runway.
The test occurred under a Permit to Fly issued by the UK Civil Aviation Authority, in coordination with the European Union Aviation Safety Agency, as part of the certification pathway for the Valo aircraft. Vertical has conducted nearly two years of piloted testing on its VX4 prototype, including hovers, vertical takeoffs, wingborne flights, and vertical landings, to de-risk systems ahead of Valo production testing.
The company now plans to expand the flight envelope toward the complete two-way transition.