Chris Caputo stood on the tarmac at Burlington International Airport in Vermont in early October, looking at the clouds in the distance. He had piloted military and commercial aircraft over the course of his long career, accumulating thousands of hours of flying time, but the journey he was about to embark on would be very different.
That’s because the plane Mr. Caputo would fly runs on batteries. Over the next 16 days, he and his colleagues flew the plane, a CX300 owned by their employer Beta Technologies, up the East Coast. They made nearly two dozen stops to rest and recharge, flying through crowded airspace in Boston, New York, Washington and other cities.
When the trip ended in Florida, Beta turned the plane over to the Air Force, which will experiment with it over the next few months. The trip offered a vision of what aviation could look like in a few years – one in which the skies are filled with planes that don’t emit greenhouse gases that are dangerously warming the Earth.
“We are doing truly meaningful work for our state, our country and the planet,” Mr. Caputo said. “It’s hard not to want to be there.”
A flurry of activity
For most of aviation history, electric aircraft were little more than a fantasy. But technological advances, particularly in batteries, and billions of dollars in investments have helped make short-haul electric airplane flights possible — and, advocates hope, commercially viable.
Beta, which is privately held, has raised more than $800 million from investors including Fidelity, Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund and private equity firm TPG Capital. The company employs about 600 people, mostly in Vermont, and recently completed construction of a factory in Burlington, where it plans to mass produce its aircraft, which still need to be certified by the Federal Aviation Administration.
The first will be the CX300, a sleek, futuristic aircraft with a 50-foot wingspan, large curved windows and a tail propeller. This aircraft is designed to carry about 1,250 pounds of cargo and will soon be followed by the A250, which features about 80 percent of the CX300’s design and is equipped with lift rotors to take off and land like a helicopter. Both aircraft, which Beta markets as Alia, will carry passengers in the future, the company said.
Beta is one of many companies working on electric aviation. In California, Joby Aviation and Archer Aviation are developing battery-powered aircraft that can fly vertically and can reportedly carry a handful of passengers over short distances. These companies have backers such as Toyota, Stellantis, United Airlines, Delta Air Lines and large investment firms. Established manufacturers such as Airbus, Boeing and Embraer are also working on electric aircraft.
The US government has also mobilized behind the industry. The FAA’s goal is to support the operation of aircraft using new propulsion on a large scale in one or more locations by 2028. And the Air Force is awarding contracts and testing vehicles, including Beta’s CX300 and an aircraft that Joby delivered in 2017 to Edwards Air Force Base in California in September.
“Almost one by plane”
Beta’s plane is not as large or powerful as the jets Mr. Caputo flew for the Air Force, Air National Guard or Delta. But what it lacks in weight it makes up for in charm, he said, noting that the plane is incredibly quiet and responsive, making it a pleasure to fly.
“You’re almost one with the airplane,” Mr. Caputo said, later adding, “You can kind of hear and feel the air flowing over the flight control surfaces. We’re currently wearing helmets because it’s experimental and safety is paramount, but we can literally take the helmets off on the plane and just talk to each other.”
Mr. Caputo said the CX300 and other electric aircraft could open up new opportunities, such as better connectivity to rural areas that have little or no direct air service.
Beta’s aircraft has flown up to 386 miles on a single charge, but the company expects its customers will generally use it for trips of 100 to 150 miles. The plane’s trip to Florida was approved with limited approval from the FAA
In addition to producing no emissions, electric aircraft are easier to operate and maintain than traditional helicopters and airplanes. However, they are not expected to take to the skies in large numbers in the next few years. At first, their trips are likely to be short – for example, from Manhattan to Kennedy International Airport or from Burlington to Syracuse, NY
Modern batteries can support limited range and weight. Therefore, the aircraft they power can generally only carry a handful of passengers or the equivalent amount of cargo.
It is expected that electric aircraft will soon compete primarily with helicopters as well as cars and trucks. In cities, large-scale flights are not possible without advanced infrastructure such as vertical landing and take-off sites and public support. The cost of producing such planes will also be high initially, limiting their use to wealthy people and to critical services such as medical evacuations, experts said.
“In some ways, the challenge and promise of electric aviation today is similar to that of the automobile at the turn of the 20th century,” said Kevin Michaels, managing director of AeroDynamic Advisory, an aviation consulting firm.
“There were several hundred manufacturers around the world, all with their own unique approaches to making these machines, but there were no roads, no traffic lights, no insurance,” he said. But, he added, the industry eventually found its way. “Twenty years later, the situation calmed down, costs finally fell and winners emerged. And it changed the way things were done, the way people lived.”
The goal is to gain trust
Kyle Clark, Beta’s founder, is aware of these concerns and says Beta has taken a more methodical approach.
“I understand the industry has a trust issue,” he said. “There is too much change, too fast, in an industry that has exceptionally high security standards.”
The company initially plans to receive FAA certification next year for an engine it is developing, followed by certification of its first and second aircraft in subsequent years. The CX300 will use runways to transport cargo, so no new infrastructure will be required, Mr Clark said.
Beta said this approach has been endorsed by several customers, including shipping giant UPS and United Therapeutics, which want to use the vehicles to transport organs for transplants. Bristow Group, another customer, plans to use the aircraft like helicopters do today, to transport goods and people to offshore energy facilities, conduct search and rescue missions for governments and for other purposes.
Bristow, which is working with eight companies developing next-generation aircraft, expects the vehicles to open up new possibilities because they are quieter than helicopters and are expected to be 60 to 70 percent cheaper to operate, said David Stepanek, executive vice President at Bristow.
In addition to building planes, Beta is building a network of chargers that can power its planes as well as cars, trucks and other vehicles. More than a dozen have been built, including one at the Air Force’s base in Florida, making it the military’s first electric aircraft charging station.
The company also built a prototype landing pad for vertical-flying aircraft based on repurposed shipping containers that house energy storage and a small living space where pilots can rest between flights.
On the day Beta’s plane left Burlington in October, Mr. Caputo flew it on two legs and landed at sunset at Griffiss International Airport in the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains, near his birthplace. He ordered Italian food for the Beta team from a restaurant he used to visit with his family, and his mother drove off to see the plane in person for the first time. The next morning, he flew the plane to Syracuse, New York, and handed it off to colleagues who would fly it the rest of the way.
Much of the popular discussion about electric aircraft revolves around the idea that they can be effectively used as flying cars to ferry people around large cities. However, in the near future they could just as likely be used to transport goods and passengers outside of densely populated urban areas, such as in the states of New York and Vermont.
“To me, it will have a really meaningful impact on how we move organs, goods and services,” he said, “and reconnect rural parts of America that I think are often forgotten.”