Hanneke Weitering is a writer and editor with AIN covering advanced air mobility and new flight technologies. She became an aviation journalist and joined the AIN team in the summer of 2022 after reporting on spaceflight and astronomy for six years at Space.com. After earning a bachelor’s degree in physics from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, she moved to New York City to pursue a master’s degree in science, health, and environmental reporting at New York University&#039;s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. She is now based in Seattle near Boeing Field and spends her free time exploring nature in the Pacific Northwest.

Science & Technology Editor

Hanneke Weitering

Read the latest news about Beta Technologies.

The first electric air taxi to roll off the production line at Beta Technologies’ factory in South Burlington, Vermont, completed its first test flight on Wednesday with company founder and CEO Kyle Clark at the helm.
After inspecting the production-representative Alia CX300 aircraft fresh off the factory floor last week, the FAA granted Beta a multipurpose special airworthiness certificate that allows the company to fly the aircraft not only for research and development but also for pilot training and “market survey” purposes, which includes public flight demonstrations and data collection missions.
The experimental airworthiness certificate allows Beta to fly the aircraft under both visual and instrument flight rules day or night, “a sign of the FAA's trust in our program, flight safety record, and processes,” a company spokesperson told AIN.
FAA aircraft records show that Beta registered the aircraft with tail number <a href="https://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinquiry/Search/NNumberResult?NNumberTxt=916LF">N916LF</a> in October. The CX300 is a conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL) aircraft that Beta intends to certify for commercial passenger and cargo operations in 2025. Beta is also developing an eVTOL version called the Alia 250 that it hopes to certify shortly thereafter.
According to Beta, Clark flew the brand-new CX300 for nearly an hour during its debut flight, reaching an altitude of 7,000 feet as he evaluated the aircraft’s handling qualities, stability, and control. Beta will need to log 50 hours of flight-test time on the aircraft before it is certificated to transition to <a href="https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/futureflight/2024-08-07/beta-wins-faa-approval-dual-control-evtol-flight-training">crew training</a> and market survey operations, the company said.

“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,” Clark said in a company statement. “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 aircraft’s first flight comes just over a year after Beta opened the 200,000-sq-ft <a href="https://www.ainonline.com/news-article/2023-10-02/beta-opens-net-zero-carbon-electric-aircraft-factory-vermont">manufacturing facility</a> at Patrick Leahy Burlington International Airport (KBTV) in Vermont, where the company also has its headquarters.&nbsp;
“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.”
Ahead of the production CX300’s first flight, Beta had already conducted extensive flight tests with its SN1 prototype—a CTOL model originally intended to inform the design of the Alia 250 eVTOL aircraft before Beta decided to pursue certification for both configurations. The Alia SN1, with tail number N250UT, made its first flights in 2020 and has flown up to 386 miles on a single charge. Beta is also actively flight-testing the SN2 (N251UT), a VTOL model that achieved its <a href="https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/futureflight/2024-04-23/beta-achieves-piloted-evtol-aircraft-transition-flights">first transition flight</a> in April.
Beta’s spokesperson told AIN that another VTOL aircraft will be among the “early builds” to roll off the production line, along with a couple more CX300s that the company will use in for-credit certification testing with the FAA. “We will continue to ramp up production,” they said. “This first build taught us a lot, and that will allow the process to get smoother and smoother as we go forward.”

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