Vertical Aerospace opened a new aircraft assembly center on September 24, 2026.
The new facility is located within Vertical Aerospace’s Flight Test Centre at Cotswold Airport in the southwest of England. It will assemble both certification-conforming Valo aircraft and the firm’s new hybrid-electric demonstrator.
The advanced air mobility firm has invested £1.5 million in the new center, adding 60,000 sq.ft. (5,574 sq. meters) of space for its industrial activities. The new assembly facility nearly doubles the dimensions of Vertical Aerospace’s Cotswolds center, to 130,000 sq.ft (12,000 sq.m.) in total.
Aircraft assembled at this facility will take part in the Valo’s upcoming certification campaign with the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). Once this is milestone achieved, the facility will also build the first production aircraft for delivery to customers.
The production capacity at the Cotswolds site will be for more than 25 Valo aircraft per year during the early stages of the aircraft’s rollout. However, Vertical Aerospace has already announced that it is looking at other locations to set up a larger-scale site. The firm has secured support from the UK government to establish this future production facility on British soil.
Vertical Aerospace also plans to use the newly inaugurated facility to assemble the first demonstrator aircraft to feature a new hybrid-electric propulsion architecture. This is intended to extend the range of the eVTOL aircraft and open it up to new uses – for example, military applications.
In parallel, the startup is also investing in an expansion of its Vertical Energy Centre located near Bristol, which will produce the battery systems to be fitted in the company’s eVTOL aircraft.