VERTICAL AEROSPACE
PARTNERS WITH
HONEY WELL
TO TRANSFORM
TR ANSPOR TATION
Honeywell’s flight systems
are helping make urban air
mobility (UAM) a reality.
Case Study
MICHAEL CERVENKA, CEO,
VERTICAL AEROSPACE LTD.
“Urban air mobility represents
the biggest disruption aviation
has seen since the dawn of
the jet age in the 1960s. The
combination of Honeywell’s
compact fly-by-wire control
systems and electrification
is opening up a whole new
opportunity for transportation.”
OVERVIEW
Founded in 2016 by Stephen Fitzpatrick, who runs the carbon-kicking
energy supplier OVO, Vertical Aerospace is a British manufacturer
of electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft.
With a vision towards easing urban congestion and decarbonizing
air travel, Vertical Aerospace is using the best technology from the
aviation, energy and automotive industries to revolutionize how
people fly.
Making air travel personal, on-demand
and carbon-free requires partners with
the know-how and can-do attitude to
realize the future. Vertical Aerospace
partnered with Honey well Aerospace
for its Compact Fly-By-Wire system,
and its ability to achieve the standards
and safety integrity levels required to
certify aircraft for commercial use.
Since its inception in 2016, Vertical
Aerospace has grown to more than
110 world-class engineers and
technical experts. The company
will fly its first passenger model in
2021, and hopes to certify a vehicle
by late 2023 or early 2024.
BACKGROUND
Energy entrepreneur Stephen Fitzpatrick
got the idea for Vertical Aerospace
when he was stuck in traffic one day.
Thinking that there had to be a better
way to get around, he decided to disrupt
aviation by combining the pace and
agility of auto racing with the rigor and
safety-first culture of aerospace.
Vertical Aerospace was born in
2016, with the idea of producing
fully-electric aircraft for urban
environments to reduce ground
congestion and create a foundation
for the decarbonization of aviation.
“We want something that actually
can make a real impact on societ y,”
says Michael Cervenka, CEO at
Vertical Aerospace. “For me, [that
means] having a vehicle that is really
easy to fly and really easy to operate.”
To remove responsibility from the pilot –
and to ultimately create a completely
autonomous flying vehicle – company
executives knew they had to find a flyby-wire system – a system that replaces
manual flight controls with an electronic
interface – that was lightweight
and technologically advanced.
“In the technology we’re developing,
the pilot really isn’t flying the vehicle,”
Cervenka says. “Instead, he’s telling
a series of computers what he wants
the vehicle to do, where to go and what
to avoid. The computer actually
controls all of the different systems
on the vehicle to make the pilot’s
directions happen reliably and safely.”
Because fly-by-wire is a critical ingredient
in the success of Vertical Aerospace’s
enterprise, company executives
searched far and wide to find the right
system. “We looked at all the different
potential suppliers in the market,”
recalls Cer venka. “We did extensive due
diligence before selecting Honeywell.”
3 | aerospace.honeywell.com | To Transform Transpor tation Vertical Aerospace Partners with Honey well
QUICK FACTS
Customer
• Name: Vertical Aerospace Ltd.
• Location: Bristol, United Kingdom
• Industry: Aerospace
• Website: vertical-aerospace.com
Honeywell Installed Solution
• Compact Fly-By-Wire Control System
• Vehicle Management
System / Avionics
Customer Results
• Safety – Redundant
systems smoothly adapt to
changing conditions
• Stability – Automatically adjusts
for turbulence and winds,
increasing passenger comfort and
ensuring precise takeoffs, cruise
performance and landings
SOLUTION
“We were particularly impressed with
the technology Honeywell already has,
as well as the kind of forward thinking
about how they’re going to upgrade
and keep their products competitive,”
Cervenka says. Vic Terry, Head of Digital
Systems at Vertical Aerospace, says that
seeing the pipeline of products to come
from Honeywell Aerospace, not just
in the fly-by-wire but also in adjacent
products, was when Vertical Aerospace
knew that Honeywell Aerospace was
going to be a really good par tner.
Terry has also been impressed with
the Honeywell Aerospace solution for
being small enough to place around
the aircraf t ver y easily. “The fly-bywire is the brains of the aircraft,” he
says. “It’s a nontrivial task to integrate
the components into the full system
and make it work. Honey well is working
really closely with us and knocking
down challenges as they come up.”
Why Honeywell
• Outstanding reliability
and industry expertise
• Utilizes the latest in electronic
processing technology to
provide safety and enhance the
performance of UAM platforms
• Condensed Fly-By-Wire Control
System is lightweight and small,
enabling greater design flexibility
According to Terry, “We’ve moved into
working with Honeywell on controllers
because they bring some fantastic
expertise there. We’re also looking
at them for the wider avionics suite
and our display systems, and I hope
moving for ward that Honey well
can bring some good technology
to the autonomy piece as well.”
Vertical Aerospace is also relying on
Honeywell Aerospace for help meeting
new eVTOL regulations established by
the European Union Aviation Safety
Agency (EASA). “The regulations set a
really high bar at ten to the minus nine,
which is what commercial transport
currently works at,” Terry says. “I really
believe that this is where we should
be heading as an industry, so people
can trust these aircraft to deliver them
where they need to get to safely.”
The rapport between the two teams has
opened up new opportunities beyond
fly-by-wire.
To Transform Transportation Vertical Aerospace Partners with Honeywell. | aerospace.honeywell.com | 4
BENEFITS
Knowing that partnerships are critical
to its success, the Vertical Aerospace
team couldn’t be happier with its
Honeywell Aerospace relationship. “The
things we looked for in a partner were
the ability to hit aggressive weight,
cost and safety targets,” Cervenka
says. “Honeywell ’s really stood out for
me in hitting all of those criteria.”
Cervenka says that Vertical Aerospace’s
partnership with Honeywell Aerospace
has been a key differentiator in terms
of providing a rapid route to market at
scale. “By bringing in the best possible
technologies and the best minds,
Honeywell gives us a real opportunity to
significantly speed up the development
cycle, de-risk the flight test program,
and ultimately bring in things like F35
flight control technology to enable these
vehicles to be really, really simple to fly.”
With big dreams of transforming
transpor tation as we know it, Cervenka
and his team know they’re getting closer
to their goals with Honeywell Aerospace.
He credits Honeywell Aerospace with
giving Vertical Aerospace “a system that
is significantly lighter and cheaper than
you’d see on a conventional aircraft
that will ultimately deliver the same
levels of safety and reliability you’d
expect on a big commercial vehicle.”
Honeywell Aerospace
1944 E. Sky Harbor Circle
Phoenix, AZ 85034
aerospace.honeywell.com
N61-2399-000-000 | 01/21
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