An American fighter goes down in hostile territory. Recovering the crew requires multiple aircraft, enormous resources, and putting even more lives at risk.
What if an autonomous aircraft could fly into that same environment, extract the crew, and return without risking another pilot?
That’s one of the possibilities Michael Cervenka, Chief Commercial and Strategy Officer of Vertical Aerospace, is exploring.
Drones have limitations in range and payload. Helicopters are incredibly capable, but they’re complex and expensive to operate and maintain. Vertical Aerospace sees an opportunity between the two.
With its Valo aircraft, Vertical is developing a common platform for electric, hybrid-electric, and eventually autonomous flight. The ambition goes well beyond flying passengers between cities. Think military logistics, personnel recovery, and missions where sending a conventional helicopter may be too expensive or too dangerous.
In this episode of The Aerospace Executive Podcast, Michael joins me to discuss how Vertical Aerospace is working to close the gap between drones and helicopters, what it will take to bring these aircraft into service, and why the future of eVTOL could be much bigger than the air-taxi market.
What You’ll Discover In This Episode
- How unglamorous commercial uses are already driving 1,500 pre-orders
- Why Vertical Aerospace survived the eVTOL hype cycle when others failed
- The critical decision that reduced risk and cleared a path to deployment
- How battery, hybrid and military variants all share one platform
- The supply chain decision that prevents being locked into outdated batteries
- How operating costs open new mission opportunities in electronic warfare, surveillance, reconnaissance and intelligence
- Why they chose to work with operators rather than be an operator
Chapters
[00:00:00] — Introduction & guest welcome
[00:01:00] — Vertical’s year: Farnborough flight demonstrations
[00:02:30] — eVTOL hype cycle and today’s competitive landscape
[00:07:31] — Certification path with EASA and the FAA
[00:11:06] — Battery density, cell choice & design tradeoffs
[00:15:20] — Aircraft variants: range, payload & hybrid option
[00:17:53] — Military use cases and the drone-to-helicopter gap
[00:23:06] — Battery suppliers and staying flexible on cell technology
[00:24:36] — Battery lifecycle, degradation & avoiding obsolescence
[00:30:42] — Operating costs, maintenance & noise vs. helicopters
[00:35:05] — Answering skeptics about the technology
[00:37:30] — Partnership strategy: Honeywell, airlines & operators
[00:42:06] — Technology spillover into other aircraft and industries
[00:45:17] — Customer use cases: airport shuttles, tourism & more
[00:46:57] — Funding, investor patience & the long-term opportunity
[00:49:37] — Sign-off
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Vertical Aerospace and what did it demonstrate at the Farnborough Airshow?
Vertical Aerospace is a UK-based company developing an electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, and Michael Cervenka, its Chief Commercial and Strategy Officer, describes it as the only remaining credible UK/European player in the eVTOL space after years of industry consolidation. At the Farnborough Airshow, the company flew its full-scale prototype aircraft piloted through “transition” on five consecutive days — taking off vertically, hovering, converting to wing-borne flight like a normal airplane, then returning to hover and landing. Cervenka points to this as proof that eVTOL technology has moved from concept to demonstrated reality, with roughly 140,000 airshow attendees seeing the aircraft fly.
How is an eVTOL different from a helicopter or a drone?
According to Cervenka, an eVTOL is not simply a battery placed inside a helicopter but a fundamentally different aircraft that borrows technology from the automotive industry (batteries, lightweight motors, power electronics) and from miniaturized, safety-critical fly-by-wire electronics that have shrunk dramatically in size and cost. Helicopters are mechanically complex, expensive to maintain, and require high blade-tip speeds that create a distinctive noise signature, while small VTOL drones are limited to roughly 100–200 miles of range and a few hundred pounds of payload. Cervenka positions Vertical’s aircraft as filling the gap between these two categories, using multiple propellers and lower tip speeds to fly quietly while carrying meaningfully more payload and range than a drone.
Why did Vertical Aerospace design its aircraft around a battery cell already in mass production instead of a next-generation cell still in development?
Cervenka explains that Vertical deliberately chose to certify its aircraft, targeted for 2029, using lithium cells that are already mass-manufactured and commercially available (he compares them to cells used in products like cordless vacuum cleaners or power tools) rather than a cell still being developed in a lab. Designing around an unproven cell would create both industrialization risk, since the company wouldn’t control the cell’s path to mass production, and certification risk, since regulators need assurance that thousands of cells in the aircraft are manufactured to a consistently high quality standard to avoid a “common mode failure.” Vertical’s own proprietary work is in integrating those cells into a full battery system — managing thermal runaway protection, crash resistance, and charge/state-of-health monitoring — rather than in cell chemistry itself.
What range and payload will Vertical Aerospace’s aircraft offer, and how is that expected to change over time?
At launch, Cervenka says the pure battery-powered variant will carry a pilot and four passengers with roughly 550 kilograms (about 1,200 pounds) of payload including baggage, typically flying 15 to 60 miles with a maximum range around 100 miles, though most real-world missions are expected to run 30–40 miles. Because the aircraft was designed physically larger than strictly necessary, Cervenka says future improvements in battery energy density (which he estimates at roughly 4% per year) can be converted into either more payload or more range, eventually growing the aircraft from a four-passenger configuration toward five and then six passengers over time.
How does the hybrid variant extend the aircraft’s range, and what does that unlock for military use?
Cervenka explains that combining a battery system with a gas turbine lets the hybrid variant fly roughly 200–250 miles at around 150 miles per hour, which starts to compete with intermediate single- and light-twin helicopters, while an uncrewed military version can carry close to a ton of payload roughly 300 miles, or about 1,000 pounds of payload over 1,000 miles, with more than 10 hours of endurance. He frames this as filling a gap between small, short-range military drones and large, expensive helicopters that cost $10,000–$25,000 per flight hour, enabling missions like dispersed logistics, electronic warfare, surveillance, reconnaissance, and casualty evacuation without putting a pilot at risk.
What military use cases does Vertical Aerospace see for its aircraft, and how significant is military interest compared to civil demand?
Cervenka says Vertical originated as a civil aircraft company and still believes the largest market opportunity is the pure battery-powered civil aircraft, since the civil hybrid and military variants are disrupting or entering markets that already exist rather than creating an entirely new one. He describes rising interest from militaries — more often from army and navy branches than air forces — around uses like dispersed logistics, crewed or uncrewed resupply to frontline areas, and emergency extraction, citing the example of the costly, multi-platform effort the U.S. used to recover pilots after losing an F-15 during the Iran conflict as the kind of mission an autonomous eVTOL could support without risking a pilot.
How does Vertical Aerospace plan to avoid battery and technology obsolescence in an aircraft designed for a 20-year life?
Cervenka explains that a high-utilization electric aircraft will have its battery swapped roughly once a year, after around 150,000–200,000 miles, at which point the cells typically retain over 90% of their original energy capacity even though internal resistance has risen substantially — making the used batteries well suited for “second life” uses like backup power for data centers. Because the battery is part of the aircraft’s certified type design, Vertical expects to periodically introduce new cell technology within the same certified architecture rather than just replacing like-for-like, giving customers the choice of more range or more payload capacity as batteries improve, which Cervenka argues gives the aircraft a built-in upgrade path rather than a fixed obsolescence timeline.
Why is Vertical Aerospace’s aircraft quieter than a helicopter?
Cervenka attributes the quieter profile to using eight propellers — four spinning clockwise and four counterclockwise — that let the aircraft avoid the very high blade-tip speeds helicopters need to prevent a retreating rotor blade from stalling. Vertical’s propellers run at roughly half a helicopter’s tip speed, which he says cuts tonal noise dramatically and produces a broader, less penetrating sound signature rather than a helicopter’s characteristic “whop-whop” or a drone’s high-pitched buzz. He notes that during flight testing, some smaller widely-used helicopters were audible from much farther away than Vertical’s aircraft was at close range.
Why did Vertical Aerospace choose to partner with airlines and helicopter operators rather than operate its own aircraft?
Cervenka says Vertical made a deliberate decision not to become an aircraft operator itself, since operating is a fundamentally different skill set, and instead works with partners such as American Airlines, Japan Airlines, aircraft lessor Avalon, and Bristow Helicopters (which he describes as the largest helicopter operator by revenue). He argues this approach lets Vertical draw on partners’ existing regulatory approvals, maintenance infrastructure, and operating expertise, deploy into multiple markets faster, and give passengers more confidence flying on an aircraft operated under a familiar, trusted airline or operator brand rather than by an unproven newcomer.
Key People, Companies & Topics Mentioned
- Michael Cervenka — Guest; Chief Commercial and Strategy Officer at Vertical Aerospace, formerly led future-technologies work at Rolls-Royce.
- Craig Picken — Podcast host.
- Vertical Aerospace — The UK-based eVTOL aircraft developer at the center of the episode.
- Rolls-Royce — Cervenka’s previous employer, where he worked on future propulsion and power technologies.
- Farnborough Airshow — Major biennial air show where Vertical Aerospace flew live piloted demonstrations of its prototype.
- Joby (Joby Aviation) — Cited as an early eVTOL industry leader and current U.S. competitor.
- Archer — U.S.-based eVTOL competitor mentioned alongside Joby and Beta.
- Beta (Beta Technologies) — U.S.-based eVTOL competitor.
- Eve — Brazilian eVTOL company spun out of Embraer.
- Honeywell — Tier-one supplier co-developing Vertical’s flight control systems and inceptors (adapted from NASA’s Artemis program).
- Mollicell — Named battery cell supply partner.
- EASA / UK Civil Aviation Authority — Regulators running a joint “concurrent certification” program with Vertical Aerospace.
- Working group on battery regulation — A cross-industry group (referred to in the episode as the “Eurokai” working group, spelling uncertain) that Vertical co-chairs, defining eVTOL battery certification rules with major aerospace players.
- Pipistrel (part of Textron), GE, Leonardo, Airbus, Safran — Other aerospace companies named as contributors to the cross-industry battery certification standards.
- Bristow Helicopters — Described as the world’s largest helicopter operator by revenue; partnered to operate Vertical’s aircraft on behalf of airline customers.
- American Airlines, Japan Airlines — Named airline customers/partners.
- Avalon — Aircraft leasing company customer, described as one of the largest lessors globally.
- Near Earth Autonomy — Autonomy technology partner announced at Farnborough, backed in part by Honeywell.
- V-280 Valor — Military tiltrotor aircraft referenced as a faster but higher-cost comparison point.
- F-15 / Iran conflict evacuation — Real-world example Cervenka cites to illustrate a military rescue mission an autonomous eVTOL could support.
- Eclipse VLJ / Vern Raburn — Historical example the host raises of a commercially limited aircraft whose underlying technology went on to influence the wider industry.
- eVTOL certification — Recurring topic covering safety standards, battery certification, and regulatory pathways.
- Second-life batteries — Topic covering reuse of retired aircraft battery cells in applications like data center backup power.
- Dispersed logistics (military) — Topic describing a modern warfare logistics strategy the aircraft is positioned to support.
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