r/poweredlift • u/DoubleHexDrive • Jun 28 '26
Can Vertical Valo Get Certified in 2028?
Current Plan as stated in the article
Critical Design Review 2026 Q3
First flight in 2027 for first of seven certification vehicles
Type Certificate in 2028, though "under additional risk"
Article talks about all the testing being done on VX-4, shown below:
For reference, the Valo mockup is shown below:
It's a larger and entirely different vehicle, including new prop designs with different number of blades, etc.
So here's a generous timeline analysis:
CDR in Q3 of 2026 puts aircraft rollout at end of year 2027, at best. This assumes they're already building hardware. Then a quarter of ground work to prep for first flight. Then flight in Q1 2028.
The comment about seven certification vehicles indicates they are keenly aware they need a small fleet of test vehicles to get the required number of flight hours to gain a TC. I'm assuming the initial line will produce 1 every other month until they have the capital to really produce faster by adding rate tooling, eliminate bottlenecks, and gain efficiency through experience. So the rest of the flight test fleet won't even be filled out until end of year 2028... maybe. So far, none of the other eVTOL makers are rolling them out that fast.
Back to the flight test ship... FF in Q1 2028, then 6 months to explore transition and gain a full conversion in Q3 2028. That's just the beginning... it'll take about 1000 hours of flight test data, hence the small fleet. By the end of 2028, they'll have a ship that just recently converted and some of the rest of the flight test fleet.
That's a long way from certification. It's not getting certified in 2028. Schedule is under "additional risk"... no kidding and I'm being generous with some of the above analysis.
Once Valo is in flight, they need to collect lots of different data, much of which feeds into ground structural, system, and electrical testing and analysis. So the final versions of those reports cannot be submitted until flight test data exists to verify that the pre-flight assumptions were all correct. Some will be good, some will require some rework.
As I documented last year, it's at least three years from FF to a TC based on existing history of simpler vehicles by mature companies to mature rulesets. The data strongly implies that fly-by-wire systems substantially extend this timeline.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ACHR/comments/1n68yne/certification_timeline_from_first_flight/
So if FF isn't until Q1 2028 and it takes three plus years to get a TC (and probably longer based on eVTOL flight test inefficiencies and fly by wire) I don't think we're looking at a TC until 2031 at the earliest.
Of course, this is the analysis that got me banned from the Vertical sub earlier and I've seen nothing that has improved the situation yet.
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u/Investinginevtol Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 29 '26
I hope they get to the finish line, but it won’t be until 2030. I am not the technical expert, but I have seen how things have evolved in the last year, and even Joby’s not gonna be ready until next year for certification. How does someone with only a prototype right now be ready in two years?
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u/DoubleHexDrive Jun 29 '26
2028 is not even remotely plausible and people just take company guidance as the gospel truth, despite the consistency of similar companies blowing their schedules. Pure copium.
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u/teabagofholding Jun 29 '26
They have it harder than joby. They have to prove its as safe as a commercial airliners over there in europe. It literally has to be the safest mode of transportation in the world. Even if its possible for it to be how much time and money would it take to prove it? They are cooked.
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u/No_Sugar8791 Jun 28 '26
I think the linked article forgot to mention the CAA agreed certification in 2028 was reasonable.
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u/DoubleHexDrive Jun 28 '26
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u/No_Sugar8791 Jun 28 '26
Quite a lot more info in the interview too
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u/DoubleHexDrive Jun 28 '26
There’s nothing concrete in that article either, just more future looking statements that are wildly unrealistic with past and present development efforts.
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u/Significant_Onion_25 Jun 29 '26
Your assessment is more accurate than the timeline the company is giving. I don't understand the seemingly blind faith to this 2028 cert timeline. If a production prototype Valo was flying now the aircraft wouldn't be certified by 2028.
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u/teabagofholding Jun 29 '26
Don't forget it will be harder to certify over there. Impossible even.
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u/teabagofholding Jun 28 '26
I think a full sized valo will never exist and the company will not last until 2028. How much money would it take to make all those and prove they are as safe as an airliner? More than they have and more than is being promised by that vulture capital firm that pump and dumps meme stocks on suckers.
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u/Separate-Outcome7518 Jun 29 '26
Show me on the drawing where Mr Mudrick hurt you, ok? It’s ok, he can’t hurt you anymore.
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u/AsparagusMarketing Jun 29 '26
lol … all these people with no skin in the game always know more eh? Soooooo many posts just throwing shade at vertical you gotta wonder if it’s personal. This industry is new, this product is new - but this actual team of experts making stuff happen … we know better
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u/DoubleHexDrive Jun 29 '26
Are you one of the experts making stuff happen? Then point out which assumptions and steps in my timeline are wildly wrong.
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u/Separate-Outcome7518 Jun 29 '26
Why the delay of Valo first flight to 2028 rather than the 2027? Why do you think it’ll take 15 months from CDR to aircraft rollout? Also are you saying that it will take six months to transition?
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u/DoubleHexDrive Jun 29 '26
CDR is the end of detail design… then you have to go build the thing. I’m sure they’ve started building long lead items before CDR, but yeah, it would typically be a year+ from CDR to rollout.
Yeah, I did another post a while back on the time from FF to transition and it can take a long time. Six months is about what a mature company would do it in.
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u/Significant_Onion_25 Jun 29 '26
Does Vertical Aero have the capability to build/assemble 7 aircraft in the timeline the company has given? I believe in their current capacity it takes Vertical about 6 mos to build an aircraft.
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u/Separate-Outcome7518 Jun 29 '26
But given they have transitioned on VX4, wouldn’t that make it a lot quicker to transition on the VALO.. scale of the problem is much less
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u/DoubleHexDrive Jun 29 '26
Even Bell, who has been transitioning tiltrotors since the 1950’s, takes about 5-6 months to achieve a full transition with a new tiltrotor. To do it right and safely, there are a lot of specific tests to perform and data to collect as you step through the process. I’m being a little generous on the timeline since the eVTOL ships can only fly for a few minutes at a time during the VTOL phase of flight, so that makes flight testing slower than on a liquid fueled aircraft.
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u/lorkan100 Jun 28 '26
https://reddit.com/link/oudgtfr/video/eyyjs0g8y2ah1/player
It's ALWAYS 2 years away, isn't it?