A milestone in electric aviation took place Thursday afternoon, when Beta Technologies landed its ALIA eVTOL aircraft at Duke Field, on Eglin Air Force Base, for a deployment period with the U.S. Air Force.
The big picture: During its 2,000-mile, multi-leg journey from Burlington, Vermont to Florida, the plane completed what Beta believes to be the longest electric aviation flight on a single charge, at 386 miles.
I think that this is more a competitor for helicopter than an airplane.
A similar capacity airplane has twice the range, but a similar helicopter is in the same ballpark.
Helicopter flights are a whole different category. They’re stupid expensive, and really only necessary if you don’t have a landing strip (or if you’re disgustingly rich).
I could see electric planes easily replacing short flights between small cities and the nearest major hub. Jet fuel ain’t cheap, and theoretically these electric planes could be very cost effective. For long flights, I expect we won’t see electric planes for quite a long time.
If it’s a VTOL it whoudl also vertically take off and land,and replace helicopters.
Yeah, and they’d also crash and kill people with some regularity. VTOLs tend to do that. 😂