BETA flies first production CTOL aircraft
BETA Technologies has flown an electric aircraft built on its new production line for the first time.
The aircraft, an Alia CTOL, was permitted to fly following the issuance of a special airworthiness certificate from the FAA. The certificate is an FAA research and development, market survey and crew training experimental airworthiness certificate with VFR, IFR and night allowances. The aircraft itself was manufactured using BETA’s production tooling at its 200,000 sqft production facility in South Burlington, US.
The flight took place yesterday, November 13th, piloted by BETA’s founder, CEO and test pilot Kyle Clark.
“This start of our production CX300 flight test campaign is a result of years of hard work and focus on studying customer requirements, hard engineering, manufacturing, production, quality and test,” said Clark. “It represents a significant milestone for BETA and is the beginning of an exciting new phase for the business. With this, we’re one step closer to putting this technology into the hands of our customers.”
The flight, which lasted nearly an hour, included a take-off, climb to 7,000 ft, handling qualities evaluation, stability and control test points and initial airspeed expansion prior to flying several approaches and a normal landing.
This build and subsequent flight come about one year after the firm opened the doors of its production facility.
“We learned a lot from this first production build,” said Clark. “We weren’t just building an aircraft company, we were building and refining a system to build high-quality aircraft efficiently. This first build allowed the team to collect data and insight on manufacturing labour, tooling design, processes, yields and sequences, all of which are being used to refine our production systems.”
Following this launch of its production test flight campaign, BETA will continue testing the aircraft for the standard 50 hours, at which point it is certificated to transition to Market Survey and/or Crew Training certificate, allowing the company to fly outside of Burlington and Plattsburgh and to continue training additional pilots on the aircraft.
BETA will also continue production of additional aircraft, including Alia CTOL and Alia VTOL configurations.
Garmin avionics
The production aircraft features Garmin’s recently launched G3000 PRIME flight deck (pictured below) which has been FAA TSO certified.
Alex Bennett, senior director Aviation Programs & OEM Sales at Garmin said: “We are excited for BETA to be the first electric aircraft manufacturer to announce G3000 PRIME for the advanced air mobility market,” said Alex Bennett, Senior Director Aviation Programs & OEM Sales, Garmin. “Built with a state-of-the-art user interface and highly flexible architecture, G3000 PRIME is perfect to support BETA’s revolutionary ALIA aircraft and their mission towards bringing a sustainable aviation solution to the market.”
Chris Caputo, BETA’s director of Flight Operations added: “BETA is a company with an insatiable passion for flying, so the team designed ALIA to be an aircraft for pilots. That means optimising the pilot vehicle interface for the best flight experience possible, from features that elevate safety to ones that increase pilot situational awareness. Garmin has been pushing avionics and aviation forward for decades and we’re thrilled to bring this gold standard to the AAM industry through our ALIA.”
