Over the past month, Beta Technologies (Burlington, Vt., U.S.) has executed evaluative deployments with two major commands of the U.S. Air Force — the Air Combat Command (ACC) and the Air Mobility Command (AMC). These deployments are the third and fourth military exercises Beta has conducted this year as the Department of Defense (DOD) looks to validate electric aviation’s applications for military missions such as critical resupply, cargo delivery and personnel transport.

Following several cross-country flights from Beta’s headquarters at Burlington International Airport (BTV), the company’s composites-intensive Alia conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL) aircraft arrived at the Alpena Combat Readiness Training Center (CRTC) in Alpena, Michigan, prepared to participate in a week-long contingency location operations rehearsal (CLOR) exercise with the ACC.

Over the course of this four-day exercise, the aircraft:

• Completed more than 24 flight hours and transported more than 2,200 pounds of cargo (up to 500 pounds at a time);
• Delivered various supplies, including meals ready to eat (MREs), utilized group ration boxes (UGR), critical medical equipment, camera systems and a tactics security system (TSS);
• Executed a simulated MEDEVAC mission between operational bases; and
• Filled a logistics gap created by a canceled C-130 airlift.

After successfully completing the CLOR exercise, Beta flew Alia to Springfield, Ohio, where — following extensive ground school and simulator training — UPS pilot Eric Bergesen conducted a qualitative evaluation flight. Next, Beta flew into Virginia to simulate customer routes, then landed at Atlantic City International Airport (ACY) where the company, along with the FAA, AMC, National Aerospace Research & Technology Park (NARTP), Atlantic Cape Community College and the Atlantic County Economic Alliance (ACEA), hosted an event and flight demo to showcase the electric future of aviation.

On July 9, Beta participated in another military exercise in a demonstration for AMC, conducting a series of flights between Dover Air Force Base in Dover, Delaware and McGuire Air Force Base in Burlington County, New Jersey — two priority hubs for Air Force transportation and logistics. In addition to its aircraft, Alia brought its charging solutions on-site to top up the aircraft’s state of charge.

Over the course of this day-long exercise, Alia:

• Completed five successful flights that included asset repositioning and transferring critical cargo between Air Force assets;
• Delivered various multi-hundred-pound loads filled with calibrated precision measurement equipment laboratory (PMEL);
• Supplanted 4+ hours’ of driving for a Junior Airman with an hour and a half worth of flight time, cutting the time required in half.

These real-world missions, executed at the request of the ACC and AMC respectively, and coordinated in part with AFWERX, highlighted Alia’s ability to fill logistics gaps, support mission generation, and provide a reliable platform for transporting critical cargo and medical cargo in combat operations.

“It brings key innovation to the mission. It’s going to make things faster and simpler,” Alyxandra Scalone, 305 Maintenance Squadron production controller, says. “Dover is about two-and-a-half hours away from us. This flight only took 45 minutes.”

These operations follow two successful deployments Beta completed with the DOD earlier this year. From October 2023 to January 2024, Beta was stationed at Duke Field, Eglin Air Force Base (AFB) for 3 months of experimental operations and training with the 413th Flight Test Squadron through the Air Force’s Agility Prime program. In anticipation of the deployment, Beta installed one of its Level-3 fast chargers at Eglin Air Force Base — reported to be the first electric charger purchased and installed by the DOD. The company also participated in an agility combat employment (ACE) exercise hosted in Savannah, Georgia. Alia operated seamlessly alongside 350 airmen and more than six types of military-issued aircraft, representing the first live military exercise with an electric aircraft.

Beta continues to progress its all-electric aircraft, Alia CTOL and Alia VTOL, toward FAA certification, anticipating entry into service in 2025 and 2026, respectively. Late last year, the company opened the doors to its 188,500-square-foot aircraft production facility in South Burlington, Vermont, where it will begin manufacturing these aircraft on its production line.