BETA Technologies, Inc.

That event at the Raleigh Executive Jetport included remarks from the FAA and the North Carolina DOT.

as well as two of the companies spearheading that new technology here in North Carolina, Beta Technologies and Joby Aviation.

After the ceremony, Governor Stein became the first governor in the country to fly in one of those futuristic planes.

And with today's exciting announcement, we're building on the state's legacy of aviation excellence.

Some of my competitors have gone public as well that were private, one of them specifically.

So it's more of a, it's a company called Beta Technologies.

Not really a competitor.

I would almost call them more a partner in a lot of the things that we do.

But pull back and look at the bigger picture, and it is actually a preview of one of the central conflicts that the next era of aviation is going to face head-on.

Kyle Clark is the founder and chief executive officer of Beta Technologies, a Vermont-based electric aircraft company that has been doing serious substantive work in the electric aviation space for nearly a decade now.

If you have been tracking the electric aircraft world, you know the name.

If you have not, here's the short version.

These are the standard three legs of private airstrip opposition.

I want to address each of them because I think it is important to understand what is actually being argued on noise.

This is where the Beta Technologies angle is genuinely interesting.

The ALIA runs on electric motors.

They've got their first factory built 30 miles East of Atlanta in Covington, Georgia.

And then Beta Technologies, which is in Burlington, Vermont, and invested in by Amazon and also UPS.

They've got their first factory built in Burlington.

So the factories are going up.

Before you tune this out because it sounds like a tech press release, let's be clear about what is actually happening in North Texas this week.

Joby Aviation and Beta Technologies are both flying under a federal airspace integration program.

Real aircraft, real airspace, real controllers.

Trying to figure out how these machines fit into a system built around Cessna 172s and Boeing 737s? The demonstrations continue through the weekend, and AVWeb has been following the story from the ground.

They're not just certifying an airplane.

They're helping the FAA define the standards for a category that didn't exist before.

The company has partnership agreements with Delta Airlines and Toyota, which is also a significant investor Beta Technologies takes a different approach.

Their aircraft, the Elia, looks much more like a conventional fixed-wing airplane, high wing, conventional fuselage, recognizable tail structure.

We recorded this conversation live at Farnborough International Airshow, where GE Aerospace was showcasing technologies shaping the future of aviation, from its RISE open-fan engine program to hybrid electric propulsion.

During the airshow, GE Aerospace, NASA, and Beta Technologies demonstrated hybrid electric propulsion at 30,000 feet for the first time.

In this conversation, Christoph explains how GE Aerospace is approaching sustainability through efficiency technology and data, and how AI can help airlines reduce fuel burn and navigate increasingly complex environmental regulations.

Tell us about the software business.

So, a very significant step up.

And, The second thing that we have, you know, and you see it at the Fonbo Air Show, just to give you a specific example, is we've been focused on hybrid electric before.

And so we started partnership with Beta Technologies and there were two big announcements.

We've made this The first one was a program that's a longer standing GE program that's with NASA and GE and data most recently around really demonstrating hybrid electric propulsion at altitudes 30,000 feet.

Second, electric conventional aircraft, not vertical lift configurations, but aircraft that fly like an airplane with electric propulsion.

Beta Technologies out of Vermont has taken an approach that's different from most eVTOL companies.

Their fixed-wing electric aircraft, the Alia, is designed for range and efficiency.

Beta has been working with United Parcel Service and the United States Army, among others, but what's underappreciated about Beta is their charging infrastructure strategy.