Vertical Aerospace eyes urban air mobility revolution

As the issue of climate change becomes an increasingly pressing force, the calls for innovative solutions to decarbonise the transport sector are growing louder. And the UK government’s recently updated emissions target (a 78 per cent reduction by 2035) has amplified this push.

Bristol-based Vertical Aerospace is one company that plans to bring these much-demanded solutions to the forefront, through the development of an electrically powered piloted vertical take-off and landing aircraft (eVTOL) that could be carrying passengers as soon as 2024.

The company’s mission is “in some respects very simple: to make green zero-carbon Urban Air Mobility (UAM) a reality, and to be the first to do so,”said Mike Gascoyne, CTO at Vertical Aerospace and former Formula 1 engineer for teams including McLaren, Sauber, Jordan, Tyrell and Renault. “It’s kind of the holy grail of the aerospace industry at the moment, a lot of people are talking about it — autonomous vehicles, vehicles able to fly in inner cities, carbon-free, low noise… but it comes with a huge amount of technical challenges given current technology.”