Electric aircraft makes first test flight

Beta Technologies has successfully completed the first flight of its electric aircraft built on its new production line, it announced Thursday.

A news release, sighted by Diaspora Digital Media, from the electric aerospace company stated that Beta on Wednesday conducted the first flight of its Alia conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL) aircraft manufactured at its 200,000-square-foot production facility in South Burlington, Vermont.

Kyle Clark, Beta founder and CEO, conducted the first flight of the aircraft, which lasted nearly an hour. During the flight, the aircraft took off and climbed to 7,000 feet and flew several approaches before a normal landing.

“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[ing],” Clark said.

“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.”

Before the test was conducted, Beta received a special airworthiness certificate from the FAA, launching the start of production flight testing for the company.

“We learned a lot from this first production build,” Clark said. “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 labor, tooling design, processes, yields, and sequences, all of which are being used to refine our production systems.”

With its production test flight campaign in full throttle, Beta will continue flying the aircraft for the standard 50 hours, at which point it will be certified to transition to a market survey or crew training certificate.

This will allow the company to fly outside of Burlington and Plattsburgh and continue training for additional pilots on the aircraft.

The test flight follows the close of Beta’s Series C last month, which added $318 million in equity financing to the company’s balance sheet.

These funds are being directed toward continued work in certification and production activities for Beta’s electric aircraft, the company said.

The Alia CTOL build and subsequent flight comes just over a year after Beta opened the doors to its South Burlington production facility in October 2023.

Beta’s news release stated that the company has since outfitted the facility with aerospace-grade tooling for aircraft assembly and ground support equipment as well as the production of propulsion, batteries, and other support systems.

Going forward, Beta said production will continue on more Alia CTOL and Alia vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft configurations.

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