Vertical Aerospace has secured two supply agreements for its Valo electric air taxi — one covering a 30G energy-absorbing seat system, the other securing navigation technology from Northrop Grumman — as the Bristol-based company advances through certification and production.
Both long-term supply partnerships were formalised on 16 October by the Bristol-headquartered aircraft developer. Seat fabrication for the aircraft falls to ANH Structure of South Korea, while the LCR-110 inertial reference unit will be sourced from Northrop Grumman LITEF, a supplier headquartered in Germany.
Built into the seating arrangement is a layer of engineering aimed at managing the energy released when a collision occurs. The navigation system will output orientation, heading, and positional data as part of its core flight information function. Both systems feed into a platform engineered around a four-passenger cabin, designed to serve Vertical's piloted eVTOL aircraft, the Valo.
While these contracts set out what each supplier is responsible for delivering, they carry no implication that the finished systems have passed certification requirements for use on the aircraft.
Responsibility for designing, developing, certifying, and bringing into production a unified seating platform — covering the Valo's pilot positions, observer seats, and passenger accommodation — falls to ANH Structure. Built into each seat is a 30G energy-absorption system developed and owned by the manufacturer. That 30G figure, measured in units tied to Earth's gravitational pull, translates to a force thirty times stronger than standard gravity. The seats are designed to absorb collision forces before they reach vehicle occupants, with the aim of reducing the likelihood of physical harm in a crash.
No crash-test data for the completed Valo seating system has been made available by Vertical. Before those seats can move into production, the supplier faces a remaining pipeline of development work, testing procedures, and formal certification.
ANH holds regulatory certification from the European Union Aviation Safety Agency covering both design and production organisation standards. Those credentials allow the firm to carry out aerospace design and manufacturing projects that have received regulatory approval, though the seats themselves have yet to go through a separate certification process. The agreement spans the full arc from detailed design through to industrial-scale production, setting out what each stage is required to deliver. Standardising the seat layout across its fleet would give Vertical the ability to draw on shared parts when building different aircraft variants.
The LCR-110 inertial reference system is to be delivered by Northrop Grumman LITEF, a Freiburg-based operation that functions as a German subsidiary of the broader US defence and aerospace group. Data on an aircraft's orientation, directional bearing, and location flows from this system into the components that keep the flight operational. In aviation, the term "attitude" refers to the way an aircraft is angled or positioned relative to the horizon. For an eVTOL aircraft, data of this kind underpins the management of three distinct operational demands: lifting off and landing vertically, transitioning between different flight regimes, and sustaining standard forward motion through the air.
Vertical's documentation states that the LCR-110 satisfies the relevant technical standards for inertial reference equipment set out by both EASA and the Federal Aviation Administration. Prior approvals for the system on a standalone basis leave unresolved the broader work of integrating and certifying it within the full aircraft configuration.
The two agreements bring to four the number of component and technology partnerships in Vertical's supplier network, joining existing relationships with Honeywell Aerospace, Sonaca, Evolito, and Hyundai WIA. A shared airframe sits at the centre of Vertical's product roadmap, adaptable across seating arrangements of four or six passengers and configurable for electric, hybrid-electric, or autonomous operation. Those aircraft fall under an ongoing development programme rather than forming a line of type-certified models.
Advance orders totalling approximately 1,500 units have been logged by the company, drawn from buyers across four continents — among them American Airlines, Avolon, and Japan Airlines. Those orders represent purchase commitments rather than completed aircraft deliveries.
