Air Taxi comes to UK

A350F Aerotime

New assembly centre announced….

Vertical Aerospace recently announced their new Valo air taxi will be assembled at Cotswold Airport (Kemble). The company described it as a “once in a generation opportunity”, that’s the first of its kind.

The Valo aircraft currently being developed and tested are electric, carry 4 passengers (plus 1 pilot) and can fly up to 100 miles (160km). There are no operating emissions. The new centre will add 60,000 sq ft to their existing flight test centre. Construction of the new aircraft will begin late 2027. Initially, 25 to be built every year, before increasing to 900 annually by 2035. The company currently has orders for 1500, many of which are from airlines. There are plans to get the aircraft certified for commercial use by 2029.

The aircraft will take off and land vertically like helicopters. The propellers are carbon fibre composite, 8 controlling the elevation and direction. Partnering with Honeywell for the all-digital avionics and flight control systems. The airframe also carbon fibre composite. It is anticipated that the aircraft will meet global UK CAA/EASA SC-VTOL enhanced category certification standards. That’s the same level applied to current passenger airliners. Amongst the company’s partners are GOL, Bristow, Air Asia, American Airlines, JAL and Heli Air Monaco.

The battery power has been developed with input from EASA, Airbus, McLaren and Dyson. Cylindrical cells achieve high power, low impedance and fast charging to make Valo flights possible and practical. The propellers are also carbon composite. Developed in-house, they are designed to balance aerodynamics, mass and noise. All maximising in-flight performance.

Finally, the interior is spacious and has a generous cargo capacity. Valo’s modular design can be easily adapted to meet customer needs in a range of markets.

Cotswold Airport is already an important location on the enthusiasts’ map. Whilst involved in breaking up aircraft at the end of their life, it’s good to see a manufacturing facility alongside the BA B747 education centre.

In other news –

Airbus – having successfully completed the Rejected Take Off (RTO) tests 3 days ago, the first A350F flight will take place on Monday 29 September, 1030 GMT+2. There’ll be a flypast around 1430 local time, before landing. Live coverage on YouTube from TLS. Timings subject to confirmation.

US ATC – suffered an outage caused by construction workers severing a cable. Several east coast airports such as JFK and EWR severely affected. Ground stops were enforced due to lengthy queues on taxiways, with many aircraft returning to ramp. Arrivals also halted whilst the problem identified and fixed.

NATS – UK ATC experienced another problem recently. Reporting was very low key; the problem resolved within 2 hours. This time the areas affected were Oceanic, Prestwick and Northern England. A small number of flights cancelled, compared to 8 September.

Mentour Pilot – through his Mentour Media group, Petter Hornfeldt is now covering topics outside of aviation such as the Bhopal incident. He’s also teamed up with Captain Ben Watts, founder of Airline Pilot Performance. They recently examined the poor standard of aviation reporting by the UK media, criticising the apparent need to outguess the experts. They singled out the BA919 alledged stalling incident. With still no sign of an official preliminary report, it’s a case of waiting for the experts to do their job.

And finally –

BA – congratulations to F/O James Bushe on his transfer to the B787 long-haul fleet. He was previously on A320 family after joining from Loganair. You may recall that James was and continues to be an advocate for enhancing the rights of HIV positive commercial pilots.

Information courtesy of BBC News, Vertical Aerospace, NATS, Mentour Pilot, BA

Images courtesy of BBC News, AeroTime