Vertical Aerospace Ltd. Q3 FY2025 Earnings Call

Good morning. My name is Dan, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to Vertical Aerospace 2025 Third Quarter Earnings Call. Now let's turn the call over to Gillian Levine, IR Lead at Vertical Aerospace. You may begin your conference.

Good morning all. I'm delighted to welcome you to Vertical Aerospace's Third Quarter Business and Strategy Update Call. Before we get started, I would like to remind you that during today's call, we'll be making forward-looking statements. These statements involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially. Any forward-looking statements we make are based on assumptions as of today. We undertake no obligation to update these statements as a result of new information or future events. We've posted an accompanying slide deck to our Investor Relations website at investors.verticalaerospace.com, which contains detailed information on forward-looking statements. For a more complete discussion about these risks and uncertainties, we have filed our 2025 third quarter financial statements with the SEC earlier today. Please now let me hand it over to our Chairman, Domhnal Slattery.

Good morning, and thank you for joining the Vertical Aerospace third quarter business update call. Before we begin, I wanted to share an exclusive image of our new certification aircraft design, which looks impressive. We are excited to officially unveil the full-scale aircraft on December 10 in London. If you would like to join us for this significant event, please contact our Investor Relations team. I’m pleased to lead today’s call with our Chief Executive, Stuart Simpson. My name is Domhnal Slattery, and I am the Chair of Vertical Aerospace. I have nearly four decades of experience in the global aerospace industry, including founding two of the top three aircraft lessors globally, including Avolon. During this call, I want to explain why we consider Vertical Aerospace a leader in the eVTOL sector. We aim to update you on our progress and outline our top priorities moving forward for myself and the management team. On Slide 4, we will cover six main topics today. If Stuart and I do our job right, you will gain clarity on several key areas, particularly our flight test progress and aircraft design. We will also discuss the valuation gap between us and our competitors. Moving to Slide 5, we have previously discussed the fourth and final stage of our flight test program, the piloted transition flight, and its importance. Rather than just explain, we would like to show you what this looks like. Let's watch the video. So what you saw there was the demonstration of end-to-end piloted transition, a crucial derisking step for the VX4 developments and our certification program, representing a significant milestone in our history. It’s important to note that this is conducted under the oversight of the U.K. CAA, our home regulator. The video illustrated that this final phase, the transition, is the result of a five-stage test flight campaign, which will begin later this week, pending final permits from the U.K. CAA. We expect these phases to be completed across a total of 11 test flights. Once all five stages are finished, Vertical will be the first eVTOL manufacturer of our aircraft size to have completed this step under U.K. CAA regulatory oversight. This is an industry first, putting us ahead of nearly all our competitors. Now on Slide 7. Vertical's philosophy has always been to start slowly to finish quickly. From the beginning, we have maintained a clear, transparent, and measurable work scope. We are unique in the industry for our extensive aerospace certification experience. Our senior team has certified over 30 aircraft or propulsion systems, bringing decades of valuable learning and experience. We have operated under a permit to fly approved by the U.K. CAA, which involves strict oversight, ongoing compliance demonstrations, regular inspections, and joint accountability with our regulator. This approach sets us apart from peers operating under experimental air ordinance approvals with limited oversight from the FAA. Our stringent oversight allows us to front-load our certification process with more than 3,500 hours of CAA export review. One requirement for type certification in the U.K. and Europe is obtaining design organization approval, which we received in 2023. This approval demonstrates the regulators' trust in our engineering, design, and development processes. Our successful 2025 audit reaffirms the CAA's confidence in our operations. This level of regulatory engagement ensures high confidence in our 2028 certification timeline and the anticipated costs associated with achieving that certification. Now on Slide 8. At our Capital Markets Day last September, we emphasized that once an aircraft achieves certification, only two metrics truly matter: aircraft comfort and reliability, and the profitability of our customers, the operators. We are confident in our certification plan, but looking beyond certification, it’s clear that our aircraft offers the most versatile eVTOL available. Today, I want to focus on our unique passenger comfort and operator profitability, as these factors will ultimately drive long-term commercial success. Our competitors are physically limited by their aircraft size, which gives Vertical a distinct competitive edge. Moving to Slides 9 and 10, I am thrilled to present the internal renders of our certification aircraft for the first time. As you will see on these slides, our cabin space is the largest and most spacious in the industry, with over 70% more passenger cabin volume compared to our competitors. Our aircraft was designed from the outset to prioritize passenger and pilot comfort. It features three distinct compartments: the passenger cabin, the pilot cockpit, and the luggage hold, each with separate entries and exits for safety and comfort. Our cockpit is 50% larger than our competitors, and our luggage compartment is 200% larger, allowing us to check in 70 pounds of personal baggage for each passenger. This makes our aircraft ideal for direct transfers from airports to central business districts. Simply put, no other eVTOL matches this combination of comfort, space, and practicality. On Slide 11, you will also see that the VX4 uniquely scales from four to six passengers. This flexibility distinguishes our aircraft in the market, as no competitor can accommodate six passengers. As a result, the VX4 will be the preferred aircraft for operators worldwide. Now, on Slide 12, what I just described qualitatively translates into clear financial metrics. Serving six passengers instead of four allows our operators to increase revenue by 50% and more than double annual operating profit potential. Scaling to six passengers reduces the cost per seat mile by 30% and significantly improves margins, with potential gross margins ranging between 56% at a 75% load factor. These unit economics are transformative for our operators and support our robust industry-leading order book. The essential message here is clear. After certification, safety—which we uphold to the highest standards—and passenger comfort and operator economics, which the VX4 uniquely delivers, are what truly matters. I will now turn the call over to our CEO, Stuart Simpson, who will provide further details on our certification costs and key components.

Thank you, Domhnal. Six years ago, we made a strategic choice to focus on being a pure-play OEM and to largely avoid vertical integration. We source our parts from Tier 1 aerospace manufacturers globally, each one with decades of certification history. We are the only OEM with proven Tier 1 aerospace suppliers on safety critical systems, including flight control computers. This model is efficient, cost effective, and positions Vertical as the best steward of capital. Turning to Slide 14. Our cost to certification is guided by confidence in the U.K. CAA process and timeline. The key components are: first, $550 million of people and operating expenses. This is where the benefit of our OEM model really comes through, allowing a lean and cost-effective model. Additionally, being based in the U.K., we have significantly lower costs than U.S.-based competitors. Second, $225 million of nonrecurring costs, largely fixed through contracts with Tier 1 suppliers, 75% quoted or contracted and 25% estimated. As a reminder, these are one-time upfront costs to our partner suppliers that cover the initial design and development of key parts of the VX4, along with tooling costs to build our certification and production aircraft. These suppliers are leaders in their respective categories and understand certification, enabling us to benefit from leveraging their engineers and expertise. Finally, $75 million of CapEx is allocated to cover the investment in our initial production facilities at Cotswold Capital and an expansion of our Vertical Energy Center where we assemble batteries. As we raised at our Capital Markets Day in September, it is in our DNA to bring clarity to an opaque industry. We are the only OEM in the space with published financial and operating metrics through 2035. This speaks volumes to our business strategy and path to certification. Slide 15 shows that through Q3 2025, our spend was in line with expectations, and we maintain our full-year guidance of USD 110 million to USD 125 million. This is 75% below our main competitors. Our tax position is $123.4 million as of the end of the third quarter. As of today, our cash position is $117 million. Our ATM facility put in place in September '25 contributed $7.2 million in the third quarter and $16.4 million year-to-date. Over the next 12 months, we anticipate spending $235 million. We will provide a more granular 2026 spend forecast at our full year earnings call. Moving to Slide 16. Vertical clearly executes on its operational milestones for 2025, including our piloted wing-borne test flights, flying real-world use cases, earning further DOA privileges from the CAA, and initiation of our production steps are completed. From the two items outstanding, first, piloted transition has been discussed earlier today and will be completed within weeks. Second, the build of our third prototype is progressing well and again, will be completed in weeks, likely at the beginning of December and flying shortly thereafter. In 2026, this third aircraft is what will be retrofitted with the hybrid powertrain to begin hybrid flight tests. Moving to Slide 17, you will see our high-level certification timeline. The first point to note is that we have already completed the preliminary design review, or PDR, with 75% of our components already locked in for the certification aircraft. The next step is CDR expected in mid-2026. This will lock in the final 25% of the components for the final aircraft design and the supply chain, allowing us to move towards certification and then mass manufacture. After we complete CDR, nothing on the aircraft will change. We will not be tweaking landing gear or propellers. This is the final aircraft and enables us to begin delivering the seven certification aircraft that we will test through to 2028 certification. Of course, this CDR is a significant milestone for the company, but also for our suppliers and customers as well. I'll now hand back to Dom.

Thank you so much, Stuart. So let's turn to Slide 18. Now the first thing you will note on this slide is a lot of red access. I am often asked, why does Vertical trade at such a discount to its peers? The gap is simply cyclical. Vertical's market cap is 3% of company A and 6% of company B. In our opinion, this gap is entirely unwarranted. So let me try and frame this for you from our perspective. On almost every valuation metric that matters—be it technology, capital efficiency, real tangible certification progress, or customers—Vertical outperforms. If you look at the key value drivers down the left-hand side of this page, it's obvious that Vertical has achieved or exceeded on all of these metrics, yet our valuation remains detached from reality. However, we believe upcoming milestones, including piloted transition, will act as a significant catalyst to our share price. So turning to Slide 19. In our year-end and Q4 update, we will lay out a clear set of objectives for 2026. However, as a step back, I see two key priorities for me as Chair. The first is to conclude a partnership and investment with a global strategic player, and secondly, working with the team to significantly grow our order book. If you turn to Slide 20, here you can see the scale and depth and quality of our customer base. We have one of the industry's largest order books, globally diversified. Importantly, we are the only eVTOL OEM that has a Tier 1 global lessor on its program. This is a unique competitive advantage, giving us access to Avolon's global distribution capability. Our relationship with Bristow, the preeminent helicopter operator globally, is also strategically compelling as it's the industry's only ready-to-fly partnership enabled by their global AOCs. Now our order book has been effectively closed for two years, but we will be reopening it selectively, targeting high-value geographies and end markets. And it will not surprise you that a key focus for me and the team will be to secure the first sale of our hybrid aircraft, which begins testing, as Stuart said, in 2026. Finally, turning to Slide 21. Now that we are within weeks of completing a successful piloted transition, we and the Board now believe this is the moment to close an investment with a strategic industrial partner to tangibly support our ramp from certification to commercialization. Our ideal partner is a global player in aerospace, automotive, or the defense sectors. Unquestionably, there is significant strategic investor interest in the sector. Beta's successful IPO this morning is a clear demonstration of this. On behalf of the team, I congratulate Kyle Clark and his team on their success. Vertical is in active dialogue led by me with several potential partners globally, and I am confident that we will conclude a transaction shortly. If we are successful, this partnership will be transformational, both for the business and our share price. Finally, turning to Slide 22. We hope that this call has given you clarity on our progress towards piloted transition, the industry-leading aspects of our aircraft, and why we believe Vertical Aerospace is the absolute best steward of your valuable capital. With that, I'm going to hand back to the operator, and we will open the call to questions.

Your first question comes from the line of Austin Moeller from Canaccord Genuity.

So my first question, where are we at on Aircraft 3 production and the development of the hybrid powertrain for early '26 flight testing?

Austin, thank you for the question. Aircraft 3 production is exactly in line with plan. As I said earlier, it will be completed in the first couple of weeks of December. So we're really pleased; we are exactly on plan with that. In terms of the hybrid, again, we're exactly in line with our plan for that. Everything is coming together for the aircraft to be flying in the middle of next year. So really pleased with everything that the team has been doing, and we're on track on both of those.

Yes. And Austin, let me add to that as well. I think this is important for people to understand. A lot of our competitors are talking about hybrid. But the reality is none of them have an airframe currently that works for a hybrid. Vertical is the only OEM that has an airframe that can take a gas combustion engine immediately without any amendments or adjustments to the airframe. That's the most important. So we are a major first mover in the flight test campaign, which will start, as Stuart said, in the middle of next year.

Okay. And then just you talked about the hybrid powertrain aircraft and potentially getting an order there soon or announcing an order there soon. If we think about the defense market, when might the U.K. MOD or NATO MODs be interested in procuring aircraft for troop transport? It seems like there's a lot of opportunity there to sell this to European allies given the 5% spending commitment and the low acoustics and thermals of the aircraft.

Yes. I think you're spot on, Austin. The step back here is that the defense budgets in Europe are going to be at 8-decade highs, okay? We, as you can well imagine, are in direct dialogue with every major government in Europe about this aircraft, and the interest in the airplane is exceptional. Given some of the touch points we have from our Board colleagues, particularly Lord Andrew, former Head of MI5, you can well imagine that we've got great access, particularly in the U.K. MOD. So we'll be working super hard going into 2026 to secure the first order, and I'm confident that we'll achieve that.

Our next question comes from the line of Andres Sheppard from Cantor.

Congratulations on the quarter. I was wondering if you can maybe talk a little bit about your manufacturing strategy. Will you be pursuing kind of a large OEM agreement partnership there to kind of help as you begin to ramp up the high-scale manufacturing process? Or what's the strategy there?

Yes. It's a good question, Andrew, right? And one we've thought about extensively over the years. You can apply different approaches to this. You can do the sort of let's build the big huge factories, let's spend a lot of money doing that, and hopefully, we can fill them at some point in the future or you can take a more prudent, more risk-adjusted approach, which is what we've done. Okay? So you should expect to see our manufacturing cadence as follows. Phase 1 in the U.K., as we've outlined, and Stuart can give some color on that. Phase 2 is the turbocharge phase. And as I mentioned in my remarks, one of the key criteria for selecting an industrial partner with us is their ability to turbocharge our production capacity for this aircraft. What does that mean? In practical terms, by the middle of the next decade, we'll have three manufacturing facilities: one in the United States covering North and South America, which will be a major market; one in Europe; and one in Asia. I suspect that by the middle of next year, we'll be coming back to the market with a significantly ramped-up production forecast for this aircraft, given the demand that I am seeing globally. I spend my time talking to airline CEOs globally who are waiting to order our aircraft, but they want the aircraft earlier. Right now, we are production constrained under our current forecast. So clearly, the objective is to build more airplanes faster and more efficiently. Stuart, do you want to touch on the immediate plans because it's important.

Yes, of course. Andres, thanks for the question. As I mentioned at the Capital Market Day and just touched on here, the $75 million we'll be spending gets our initial capacity up and running; that takes us through 2030. That is expanding our footprint at the Cotswold Airport, where we'll be assembling the aircraft, and expanding our facility at the Vertical Energy Center where we'll be assembling batteries. Hand-in-hand with that, we're in deep discussions with the U.K. government about where we locate the major U.K. facilities, the battery giga factory, and a production facility for the aircraft of several hundred aircraft a year. Then exactly as Domhnal says, we will ramp that across the U.S. facility and into Asia.

We'll make a decision on the European location during the first quarter of next year. And whilst Stuart touched on it being in the U.K., it's highly likely to be in the U.K., but I wouldn't say we've made that decision yet. What we're seeing is pretty significant inbound from other European countries who are keen for us to base there. Unquestionably, high-quality jobs and a lot of them. But from the market's perspective, that decision will be made during Q1 next year.

Wonderful. Appreciate all that color. And maybe just a quick follow-up. I think a lot of your peers are pursuing the Middle East as a viable market, some of them even potentially targeting commercialization there over the next six months. It doesn't seem like Vertical is emphasizing or prioritizing in this region. So curious to get your thoughts there. Is this another potential geography to pursue? Is this an opportunity perhaps in the more near term? Or is the goal to kind of stay focused on Europe and the U.K. and ramp up from there?

Okay. Let me help break this down into its components because it is a really important point. First of all, GCC, or the Middle East as broadly defined, is an extremely important marketplace. For those of you that follow us closely, you will see that we had a significant day in Saudi Arabia a couple of weeks ago, and Stuart Simpson was there with the U.K. government as part of the FII. So unquestionably, the Middle East is really important. But here's where it's not important: what I would call strategic tourism around certification searches. We do not believe there is any real validity in an eVTOL OEM seeking out some fanciful early-stage certification in the Middle East. It's not real; it's not tangible, and it's not portable globally. That's the reality, based on my four decades of experience in this industry. You will have noted this morning that suddenly the authorities in the Middle East have news reports saying, oh, sorry, we don't expect to give 'certification' until late '26. You just referenced there that our competitors are talking about commercial operations as soon as the end of this year. It isn't happening. It is fanciful, and it is not certification.

Our next question comes from the line of Edison Yu from Deutsche Bank.

Congrats on all this progress. So first question about – we saw the press release about funding both from U.K. Department of Transport under this OxCam AAM Corridor initiative. So could you clarify what portion of the award is directly attributable to Vertical and any technical milestones met before you can access that fund?

Alright. Thank you, Laura. I think what you're alluding to is the British government's desire to promote both Oxford and Cambridge Universities, which are two of the world's leading academic and research institutes, producing incredible output of new businesses. The opportunity to link those through a corridor of innovation and development is a fantastic initiative, of which we're very proud to be a part. Our aircraft will be able to fly between those two, providing a unique capability. In terms of accessing funding, it's gone into one big bucket, and we'll be making our pitch to make sure we can do the demonstrations of that capability over the coming 12 months. But it's a phenomenal step for the U.K. to leverage those two institutions and grow them aggressively over the coming years, and we will be part of enabling that. So hopefully that gives you a bit of color commentary.

Okay, got you. Also for the $700 million towards certification. Should we assume more spending on top of that for the hybrid powertrain? Or would that be a material amount, or is most cost for the hybrid already behind?

Let's break that into two components. Stuart will answer the components of 700. As I touched on, and I think it's really important for the market to understand this, there is a massive future and opportunity on the hybrid side. There's also a massive cost for our competitors to build a hybrid. We don't have to incur that material cost because our aircraft is capable of taking that gas turbine without any major changes to the airframe. So we'll be first to the market with our flight testing in the middle of next year, as Stuart touched on. And as a consequence of that, we'll be the first to the market to sell a hybrid. With respect to the incremental cost with the 700, Stuart, you might want to touch on that?

So Laura, the $700 million includes everything we need to get the hybrid program up, running, and flying over the next 12 months. On the back of which, as Domhnal said, we are highly likely to get a sale. That sale will then be able to fund the balance of the program. Interestingly, as Domhnal said, our airframe fits this hybrid powertrain. So the cost to actually take it from concept through to certification is relatively low. So that's the way to think about it. We've got everything we need for the next 12 to 15 months.

To take a step back, we think about the total cost of certification. By the time our aircraft is certified in the second half of 2028, our estimate is that we will have invested USD 1.1 billion to achieve that milestone. Our best guess is that our U.S. competitors will have spent a minimum of $2.5 billion by that time, and they still won't have achieved the certification of a hybrid aircraft. So there's a stark reality there on investor capital allocation and getting a return on that invested capital over time. The market should focus on the efficiency of how we deal with our capital.

Our next question comes from the line of Chris Pierce from Needham.

I just have one question. You talked about front-loaded certification given the regulations needed to get in the air and then building your certification plans by mid-2026. I think I have that right. So can you just kind of sketch through what we will hear from you guys or what happens over the next two years until certification in 2028? Is that just consistent flying and feedback? Or is there a chance for that to be pulled forward? I'm just thinking about where you guys are at and then your comments on front-loaded. I just love to hear you expand on that.

Yes. So there's no pulling forward. There are no fanciful timelines on certification. It will take what it will take. We are highly confident in getting that achieved, as we said, in the second half of 2028. In our year-end earnings call, we will present to the market a forensic breakdown by quarter, starting in quarter 1, 2026, through to conclusion in the second half of '28, exactly what you should expect us to be doing each quarter as we go along the certification journey. The front-loading piece is really important for people to understand. Why it's important is as follows: in the U.K. and in Europe, the process is front-loaded in terms of the degree of interaction, the amount of oversight we have in the process with the regulator when the aircraft is still at early stage prototype development. So we get a lot of input, guidance, and derisking from a safety regulatory perspective. If you look at Slide 7, which was originally presented at our Capital Markets Day by Patrick Kai, the former Head of EASA, who sits on our Board, it represents a lot of risk that is taken out earlier in the program, unlike the United States, which is actually diametrically opposite. We are the only aircraft manufacturer that has a means of compliance. What that means in simple terms is we know exactly what we have to do and when we have to do it to get the aircraft certified. So key messages are we will get there on time. There will be no pull forward. This will take until the second half of 2028 to get it done. No fanciful ambitions or throw away spend comments that we can get there earlier.

Okay. So just to clarify, there will be a schedule that because of what EASA has in place with CAA, investors will be able to see what you need to do, when you will do it, what boxes will be checked, et cetera...

To a reasonable level of detail so that we can measure ourselves against performance and so that you can measure us. Stuart?

Yes. Just giving you the high points on that, Chris, we do CDR in the middle of next year, which locks in 100% of the aircraft design and the supply chain. The engineers effectively put the pencil down at that point. That is our final aircraft; no change. Importantly, we've already locked down 75% of the final aircraft. We already know the design of it. We're showing that on the 10th of December. The CDR locks in the supply chain. The design is there. The next aircraft we build, and we've already initiated production by ordering the very long lead time items, is a certification aircraft. It will be completed in Q1 '27 and flying. After that, we build six others, and they constantly fly hand-in-hand with oversight from the regulator. This is the process. As Domhnal said, there are no fanciful projections for certification. It is a clear, transparent process, and we will be certifying in 2028.

Our next question comes from the line of Savi Syth, Raymond James.

Just could you talk a little bit given your differentiation of the bigger cabin? Could you talk a little bit about the choices you've made versus your competitors that enable that bigger cabin?

The first and I think the most important, before we ever designed anything, and that takes us back to five years ago, we spent a great deal of time, and I was intimately involved in this exercise, speaking with our customers or potential customers globally, about what was the best product market fit—there were a few key learnings and some obvious learnings. One was that range wasn't going to be super important for the initial phase of business, i.e., from central business district to airport in central business district globally. If you look at the 50 mega cities of the world where these aircraft will be flying, the average range from airport into town is about 50 kilometers, plus or minus. So range wasn't going to be a differentiator. The size of the cabin was the absolute most important thing. As a consequence, we also needed to be able to check in luggage. That gave us a real engineering challenge five years ago. How do you design an aircraft of that size with the energy density you need for the batteries at a price point to the operator that can make sense? So that was the conundrum we were dealing with five years ago. We have definitely resolved it. So it was a customer-led design engineering process. If you talk to the Airbuses and Boeings of the world, they will tell you it is the right and best way to design an aircraft. The reality is, today, that airplane physically exists. If you come to London on the 10th of December, you will be able to sit in that cabin. It is comfortable, it's scalable. If you compare and contrast our cabin to some of our competitors, it is demonstrably bigger.

Helpful. And then just on the battery side, I don't know if you can speak to this. I am kind of curious; I know you're several generations ahead of what is being fed in Aircraft 2 and Aircraft 3. I wonder if you can talk about how much more development there is prior to CDR and what the improved capability might be versus what you're flying today.

Thanks, Savi. Thanks for the questions. You're absolutely right. The batteries that we have on Aircraft 2 that is flying, we are a couple of generations ahead as we look to the certification aircraft. If I take you back to what I've said previously about our PDR, we have locked in the battery capability in that. We actually have a choice of a couple of cell suppliers because we have such a deep understanding. We've done over 5 million hours of testing on our batteries. We have great insight into that. I don't think there's much more I can add on that at the minute, but we have great confidence, line of sight through the PDR, through the supply chain to a battery cell and the battery pack that we build around that cell that is certifiable and gives us the payload and the range that we will be putting into the market and meet way over 90% of the customer launch routes. It's a phenomenal engineering achievement, as Domhnal said. It delivers exactly what our customers need in terms of cabin capacity and luggage capacity.

Our final question comes from the line of Amit Dayal, H.C. Wainwright.

Also great to see the new design, guys; definitely a big differentiator for you. Domhnal, you commented on concluding a strategic partnership potentially in the very near term. I mean, can we assume this includes some level of investment? And can that investment carry you through 2027 or 2026 at least?

I can't comment on the specifics, but I think it would be reasonable to assume that any conclusion of the transactional strategic will carry with it an investment quantum that would reassure the market, let me put it that way.

Okay, understood. Also, just sticking on that topic, as defense needs evolve in the European market, the U.K. market, et cetera, is there a path for nondilutive funding for development purposes? Any clarity on that would probably be helpful for investors?

Yes, Amit, thank you. You're absolutely on point. There are opportunities for nondilutive funding for the development of hybrid aircraft. That's exactly how the defense market works as you get into negotiations with the government. So yes, there are plenty of opportunities for that. As Domhnal said, we're having a lot of incoming and very good discussions across the European defense industry.

Okay. And then on the defense side again, have any specifics emerged in terms of the aircraft capabilities, et cetera, that those essential customers may be looking for?

I think if you take a step back and look at the aircraft, it provides several features that the defense industry is extremely excited about. First of all, you have silent takeoff and landing, which is extremely important. It also has a very low noise signature, so you can't hear the aircraft when it's coming in to land or taking off. Then, once it's at altitude, you can fire the gas turbine to travel up to 1,000 kilometers. That combination of low noise signature, low thermal signature, and near silence is transformative in the military. So this is what underpins the incoming interest we're receiving. The use cases are endless, from logistics to deployment, et cetera. We feel we have the strongest product in the sector. We will be flying it next year, and we will be selling it next year.

I will now turn the call back over to the Chairman of Vertical Aerospace, Domhnal Slattery, for closing remarks.

Okay. Thank you, operator, and thanks, everybody, for joining us this morning and the thoughtful questions. If I were to ask you to take one slide away as you think about our remarks today, Section 5, Slide 18. It's the only slide that matters. Please think about that, reflecting on the relative performance of this business compared to our competitors. I want to re-extend an invitation to come to London, Canary Wharf, to see our physical aircraft. As an aerospace enthusiast, I’ve been in the business for four decades. I have seen this physical aircraft that we will be unveiling; it is simply the coolest thing imaginable. If you want to see the future of flight and see the Vertical VX4, it will blow your mind. So get your tickets, contact the IR team, and come to London on the 10th of December. We will also be bringing that aircraft to the United States immediately in Q1 2026. Thank you all. We look forward to our next interaction.