Beta Brings Electric Airplane to Farnborough Flying Display

Beta Technologies has brought two examples of its electric aircraft to this year’s Farnborough International Airshow: the piloted Alia CX300 electric airplane, which is taking part in the flying display, and the uncrewed, hybrid-electric Alia MV250 defense variant, which is parked in the static display.

The South Burlington, Vermont-based electric aircraft developer opened its doors to reporters on June 3 for a rare media day at its research and manufacturing facilities, where Beta founder and CEO Kyle Clark was candid about the company’s agenda: With roughly 300 seconds allotted for its flying display at Farnborough, he wanted the press to see the full scope of the operation before the show.

What visitors saw was a company methodically working down a stepwise certification strategy that Clark said tackles the technologies most novel to the FAA first. Beta certified its electric aircraft propeller—developed with Hartzell under Part 35—last year, clearing what Clark described as an entirely new class of propulsion. 

The company is now closing in on certification of the H500A electric engine, with the CX300 conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL) airplane to follow before the end of this year, and the Alia 250 vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) variant about 12 months after that. Beta is developing the hybrid-electric MV250 in partnership with Near Earth Autonomy, with autonomous flight testing slated to begin this year.

“When we get to the VTOL, we burn down 80-plus percent of the risk of that final certification step,” Clark said, noting that the two aircraft share batteries, avionics, flight controls, and propulsion.

On the factory floor, the engineering for the CX300 is frozen, with seven airframes off the production line so far across both variants and a target of demonstrating a rate of 4.5 aircraft per month by the end of the year. Two to three FAA-conforming airplanes will support the flight-test campaign when type inspection authorization testing begins later this year.

That certification progress underpins an international expansion that has accelerated over the past year. Beta aircraft have flown more than 160,000 nm to date, according to the company, which has built charging infrastructure at 123 sites across the U.S. and Canada. Recent demonstrations in Sweden and Scotland showed the airplane’s ability to serve remote island and highland routes, and company officials also pointed to flights in Japan and an appearance at the opening of the Paris Air Show last year.

At home, U.S. regulators have handed Beta what Clark called a tailwind. On July 10, the company flew the first operational mission under the FAA’s eVTOL Integration Pilot Program (eIPP), carrying manufactured organ products in development by launch customer United Therapeutics across a corridor of four airports in Virginia and Maryland. Two Alia CX300s flew the roughly 275-nm campaign in relay. Beta is participating in seven of the eight eIPP launch projects that the U.S. Department of Transportation and the FAA selected in March, the largest footprint of any electric aircraft developer in the program, which lets operators fly revenue missions before their aircraft complete type certification.

More eIPP operations are lined up. Beta is targeting a fall launch of commercial cargo service in Florida, where the state’s transportation department has agreed to buy 34 of Beta’s electric aircraft chargers and thermal management systems for 17 airports. Ahead of that launch, Beta ran an extended high-cadence trial out of Orlando with Republic Airways, flying nine sorties a day to demonstrate dispatch reliability in hot, high-density-altitude conditions—then repeated the exercise in subzero Vermont winter weather.

Charging infrastructure is also drawing Beta into a rare collaboration with a rival. On July 16, Beta joined eVTOL developer Archer Aviation and Macquarie Capital to launch America’s Consortium for Electric Skyways (ACES), a plan to electrify up to 250 air taxi sites across California, Texas, Florida, and New York by 2030. Beta will supply charging hardware built on the Combined Charging Standard—the open standard endorsed by the General Aviation Manufacturers Association—so multiple operators can share the same sites, with Archer flying passenger air taxi missions and Beta’s customers handling cargo and medical transport. Both companies are exhibiting at Farnborough, where Clark and Archer CEO Adam Goldstein are due to discuss the partnership on Tuesday.

The economics, Beta executives argued, are the point. Comparing the CX300 to a Cessna 208, the company put the electric airplane’s operating cost at roughly $450 per hour against $800 to $850 for the turbine-powered Caravan, with the eVTOL variant offering savings of about 75% over a comparable helicopter. 

“A big part of the eIPP is because there is this disbelief at the economic benefits of these aircraft,” Clark said. “But it is very, very real.”

Customers appear to be buying the argument. Beta has reported an order backlog of approximately $3.9 billion across roughly 991 aircraft. The company, which went public in November 2025, reported first-quarter revenue of $10.1 million in May.

For Clark, the show-don’t-tell approach extends to how the company measures itself against competitors that talk more and fly less. “When people talk a lot about their VTOL aircraft but they don’t do anything with it, they end up having the perception of having a more advanced program than Beta,” he said. This week, Beta gets its 300 seconds to show rather than tell.