Beta Technologies hopes a new Trump initiative will help the company more quickly bring its electric aircraft to market — beginning, perhaps, in Vermont.
The South Burlington firm has proposed a smattering of commercial demonstration projects in response to an executive order that President Donald Trump issued last year to bolster the nascent industry.
Among the company’s proposals: partnering with a helicopter operator to move medical supplies between Vermont and northern New York.
The project, if selected, could launch later this year.
Beta has positioned itself to be a key player in the Trump administration’s quest to gain a competitive edge over China in drones and advanced air mobility.
The president’s executive order last June, dubbed “Unleashing American Drone Dominance,” instructed the Federal Aviation Administration to partner with states and American electric aviation companies to conduct field missions using their still-experimental aircraft.
Because Beta’s Alia plane has not yet been certified for commercial use, its test flights are highly regulated. The forthcoming program will allow selected companies to demonstrate how their aircraft perform while carrying out missions for customers and, in certain cases, collect revenue.
Beta founder and CEO Kyle Clark said the initiative will speed up development and commercial adoption of electric flight in the United States.
“It will advance our industry by a year,” Clark told members of Congress last month during testimony before a House subcommittee on aviation.
Beta is jockeying with its U.S.-based competitors to secure at least one of five projects that the Federal Aviation Administration will greenlight as soon as March. Beta is part of at least 10 proposals put forward by various states, Clark told investors during a December earnings call.
Its partner on many of those pitches is Metro Aviation, a medical helicopter operator.
Metro Aviation already provides medical transportation at the University of Vermont Medical Center in Burlington. The Louisiana-based company wants to use Beta’s planes to move equipment or blood products across Lake Champlain to hospitals in northern New York. Eventually, it hopes to transport clinicians and patients as well.
“A lot of this will be proof of concept,” vice president Todd Stanberry said. “But I think it’s going to very quickly morph into the real needs.”
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is the primary applicant for the Vermont-New York proposal. Vermont Transportation Secretary Joe Flynn penned a letter of support in December, writing that Beta’s technology could “fundamentally reshape rural connectivity.”
The electric aviation industry has made significant technological advancements — Beta prototypes have flown more than 100,000 miles to date — though the planes’ commercial prospects remain uncertain.
Industry proponents believe electric aviation will usher in an era of air taxis. Beta has focused initially on cargo and medical applications, including in rural areas.
That focus is likely to pay off as the federal government seeks to quickly deploy new aircraft around the country, Clark told investors.
The Federal Aviation Administration “really likes applications that have a lower risk,” he said on the recent earnings call, “and that’s where we’re starting.”
Beta’s approach has appealed to Metro Aviation as well. The company plans to purchase at least 20 of the vertical take-off configurations of Alia, with an expected delivery date of 2028. Stanberry said the electric aircraft promise a simple, cheaper alternative to helicopter travel in the medical industry.
That won’t change even if Metro and Beta aren’t successful in their pending applications with the Federal Aviation Administration.
“We’re doing it either way,” Stanberry said.
