Honeywell Aerospace has extended its partnership to support Vertical Aerospace in the development of the VX4 eVTOL aircraft. In an agreement announced on May 8, the companies said they will work together to certify critical systems, including the aircraft management system based on the Anthem flight deck, and the flight controls, which include Honeywell’s fly-by-wire technology.
As part of the enhanced collaboration, Honeywell will also provide the inceptor hand controllers that will be used by pilots to maneuver the VX4 by providing inputs to the flight control computer. According to the company, the inceptor will give pilots more precise and intuitive control.
Vertical and Honeywell have committed to certifying the systems to the 10-9 safety standards required for type certification by both the UK Civil Aviation Authority and EASA. This holds new eVTOL aircraft to the same standard as commercial airliners, equating to a failure rate of one in a billion flight hours.
Under its revised Flightpath 2030 strategy, UK-based Vertical is now aiming to certify the four-passenger VX4 model in 2028 and deliver at least 150 aircraft to customers by 2030. Honeywell has been contributing to the program for the past six years and has been an investor in Vertical since 2021.
In order to strengthen the synergistic development of the industry and promote the industrial chain cooperation of avionics upstream and downstream enterprises, The 14th Annual Avionics International Forum 2025 will be held in Shanghai,China in May 28th-29th, 2025. At the forum, we will invite numerous well-known avionics companies to deliver a keynote speech.The forum is dedicated to promoting the digital intelligent transformation of avionics systems, facilitating the application of multicore technology in avionics systems, realizing the green sustainable development of avionics systems, and upgrading the level of intelligence of avionics systems.
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