Briefs · Emerging Technologies
How Beta Technologies Is Clearing the Runway for Electric Flight
Electric flight is taking off. Beta Technologies’ Alia CX300 flew around Burlington for half an hour on about $9 of electricity, where a Cessna Caravan would have burned $210 to $255 of jet fuel. Beta, one of the top three aircraft makers, is taking the slow path: certify the CX300 first, in 2027, and the vertical-lift A250 a year later. It builds its own motors, batteries and chargers, with redundant channels so half the system can fail and the plane still flies. The verdict is brilliantly Beta: the future of flight is a plug, a battery and a patient regulator.
Read the original at IEEE Spectrum
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