Vertical Aerospace Ltd. Ordinary Shares

Good morning. My name is Jill, and I will be your conference moderator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Vertical Aerospace Second Quarter 2026 Business and Strategy Update Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. I will now turn the call over to Jillian Levine, Investor Relations Lead at Vertical Aerospace, You may begin your conference.

Good morning and welcome to Vertical Aerospace's first half 2026 business update call. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that during today's call, we will 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, and we undertake no obligation to update them as a result of new information or future events. We have posted an accompanying presentation to the Investor Relations section of our website, which contains additional information and cautionary language regarding forward-looking statements. For a more complete discussion of the risks and uncertainties affecting our business, please refer to the financial results and other materials filed with the SEC today. Today's call will be led by Stuart Simpson, our Chief Executive Officer. Stuart will be joined by Simon Davies, our Chief Task Pilot, and Michael Cervenka, our Chief Commercial and Strategy Officer. Following prepared remarks, we will open the call for questions. With that, I will hand it over to Stuart.

Thank you Gillian and good morning everyone. The first half of 2026 has been one of the most important periods in Vertical's history. In April we completed the first two-way piloted transition flight under the oversight of the UK Civil Aviation Authority and have since completed multiple transition flights. In June our final full-scale prototype began piloted flight testing. doubling our flight test capacity and this week it also completed piloted transition. In July we took that progress out of the test environment and into the public arena at the Farnborough International Airshow where we made history as the first eVTOL flight demonstration at the airshow. At Farnborough the industry did not just see an aircraft complete a single carefully staged flight. It's all vertical fly in a real operating environment in front of regulators, customers, aerospace partners, government leaders and investors. And then repeat that performance every day throughout the week. That distinction matters. It shows the maturity of our platform and moves to discussion from whether technology can work to whether it can be operated consistently, integrated safely and ultimately commercialised at scale. Farnborough also reinforced a core principle we have long embraced. Successfully commercialising a new class of aircraft requires more than an advanced airframe. It requires a coordinated ecosystem spanning certification, operators, aerospace integration, infrastructure, manufacturing, export finance and long-term capital. Over the past several months, we have made meaningful progress across every one of those areas. Today, Si will share the pilot's perspective on Farnborough and the progress of our flight test programme. Michael will then explain how we are building the broader ecosystem around VALO. and I will close with the significance of the UK Government's support, our financial position and the key milestones ahead. Before I hand over to Si, we would like to share a short film on Farnborough.