Vertical’s new supplier agreements assign Valo’s seating to ANH Structure and inertial-reference equipment to Northrop Grumman LITEF. Installation and aircraft-level compliance work remain ahead.
16 Oct 2026 — public supplier announcement LCR-110 — selected inertial reference equipment 2.85 kg — supplier datasheet mass, not installed Valo system mass 36 W at 28 VDC — supplier datasheet input power
Flight-critical reference data and occupant protection add distinct integration tasks to the aircraft’s certification programme.
Installation-specific verification, reference-data failure handling and seating test evidence for Valo’s cabin and structural interfaces.
Vertical Aerospace has selected ANH Structure to develop Valo’s seating and Northrop Grumman LITEF to supply its LCR-110 inertial reference system. The company announced the long-term agreements on 16 October; its SEC filing records their signing on 15 October.
ANH’s scope covers design, development, certification and manufacture of the seating system. LITEF’s equipment will provide position, attitude and heading information to flight-critical systems. These are supplier commitments for the aircraft development programme.
LITEF describes the LCR-110 as a hybrid GNSS/inertial system combining fibre-optic gyroscopes with MEMS accelerometers. Its navigation processing combines inertial and satellite measurements and includes monitoring of GNSS data integrity.
The supplier’s March 2021 datasheet lists a mass of 2.85 kg and input power of 36 W at 28 VDC. Those figures describe the published product, rather than the mass and electrical demand of Valo’s complete installed reference-data architecture. The announcement does not disclose the number of units or the aircraft’s redundancy arrangement.
PropulsionWatch analysis: attitude and motion data are inputs to the control functions that manage an eVTOL’s changing flight regime. Integration evidence must establish how those functions detect stale, inconsistent or failed reference data and respond safely. An equipment standard approval alone cannot demonstrate that behavior in the aircraft installation.
Vertical says ANH’s bespoke design will incorporate its proprietary 30G energy-absorption technology. That is an attributed supplier design statement; the release provides no Valo-specific occupant-injury results or completed seat-installation compliance tests.
Occupant protection depends on the seat, restraints, attachment points and surrounding structure working together. The measurable next steps are installation-specific test evidence and aircraft-level compliance findings. Selecting suppliers assigns responsibility for those systems while leaving the completed aircraft approval to the certification programme.
Image: official Northrop Grumman LITEF LCR-110 product image. Representative supplier hardware; it does not show an installed Valo unit. Credit: Northrop Grumman LITEF.
Supplier capabilities and specifications are manufacturer-reported. Engineering implications are PropulsionWatch analysis. Valo programme dossier.
