We hit 100,000 nautical miles flown on aircraft built by the team here at BETA.
It’s a number I'm proud of. Not because it’s big – although it is 4x around this beautiful planet– but because of what it represents:
Exposure. Improvement. Experience. Safety. Reliability. Discipline.
The hard work and dedication of the entire BETA team made this milestone possible and inside those nautical miles is the story of our year:
- Getting our production line up and running,
- Proving airworthiness and maintainability through thousands of flight hours,
- Spending weeks on the road flying across three continents and 10 countries,
- Flying into FAA locations in the USA and EASA in Cologne Germany to showcase our certification projects in action, and
- Gathering valuable data every step of the way.
Our family of electric aircraft landed at over 380 airports around the world – from the busiest hubs of JFK and Atlanta Hartsfield, to the small municipal airports that form the backbone of regional aviation in the U.S, to new places across New Zealand and the EU – a highlight being opening the 2025 Paris Airshow with American technology.
We brought electric aviation to the people who will shape its future: regulators in D.C., elected officials in Michigan, customers in Canada, investors in Boston, suppliers in Kansas, students in New York – and thousands of curious people who simply want a better, cleaner way to move.
We flew into Cologne, Germany to introduce the aircraft to EASA before kicking off engine and aircraft validation programs. Dale Williams, one of our mechanical engineers who also learned to fly here at BETA, flew ALIA to the FAA East Coast Certification Branch, where he was able to share firsthand with regulatory partners why he and his team designed the side stick and throttle the way they did.
Over these 100,000 nm, we have consistently and predictably performed through everything nature threw at us. We’ve flown in the smoke, rain, sleet, snow, fog, dust, and peak-summer heat — and we’ve done it with 23 different BETA pilots at the controls.
WAY BACK ;) in 2023, we flew our first cross-country flights with a trailer full of spare parts and a chase plane of SMEs. In 2024, our flights typically had two pilots and a mechanic. Our latest flights to San Francisco and Kansas? Just a pilot. No spares, no mechanics, no chase planes.
These nautical miles capture the mantra that drives this company: go and do.
With the 104,495.5 (check out the ticker on our website) under our belt – earned the hard way – we are even more confident in the aircraft and propulsion we’ve built, the systems that power and support them, and the value BETA will bring to our customers and communities around the world.
– Kyle Clark
