BETA Intern

BETA Technologies (NYSE: BETA) has become the first company to win US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) approval to fly prospective customers in an electric vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft. The FAA granted its A250 a Special Airworthiness Certificate for market surveys. The approval follows a similar authorisation for BETA's conventional takeoff and landing aircraft. Together, the two aircraft have flown more than 250,000 nautical miles. The A250 can carry up to five passengers and more than 1,200 pounds of cargo. It made its first flight under the new authorisation on October 20, 2026, flying 34 nautical miles from Plattsburgh, New York, to Burlington, Vermont, in 20 minutes. BETA is working towards full type certification and commercial operations.

Beta seeks approval for master build plan. The plan anticipates almost 1.5 million square feet between all its buildings, accommodating 5,600 people, including employees and visitors. This story by Briana Brady was first published in The Other Paper on Oct. 15, 2026. Beta Technologies' master plan is heading toward approval from South Burlington's Development Review Board. For the next 10 years, the plan aims to provide a flexible framework for how the company will build out over 100 acres off Williston Road. In its plans for growth, Beta has been amassing smaller properties adjacent to its 75-year lease with the Patrick Leahy Burlington International Airport over the last year. The plan submitted by the company proposes those properties, along with land it already occupied, will house further production facilities, allowing Beta to engineer and manufacture its electric airplanes and associated technology from beginning to end. The plan anticipates almost 1.5 million square feet between all its buildings, accommodating 5,600 people, including employees and visitors. "The applicant is proposing an innovative approach to campus master planning that provides Beta with greater flexibility as the industry evolves and grows," the plan states in its introduction. Master plans, which are often used for large campuses or facilities - both public and private - outline years of planned development. According to city planner Paul Conner, their usefulness lies in knowing the end goal before the first phase of building breaks ground. "If you had a five-acre piece of land and you put a house right (in the middle) that might block the ability to build out the property in the future in a way that is connected and makes sense and is making full use of the intent of our rules," Conner said. Master plans often come with different phases of building. For housing, sections of a development might come one at a time, with the engineering and permitting for each phase finalized independently, though the entire build-out is planned from the beginning. What Beta proposed in its sketch plan in June, and what it is seeking from the development review board, is different: an "adaptive" master plan. While Beta has proposed the types of buildings and facilities it plans to build in each of the three zones it delineated, the path toward a full build-out is less straightforward than chronological phases. "For a technology company like Beta, whose ultimate buildout size, timing, and configuration cannot be precisely defined years in advance, this approach effectively turns the master plan into a recurring project-level permitting step rather than a guiding framework for coordinated, long-term development," the company wrote in the re-worked narrative it submitted to the review board for its Oct. 6 meeting. Beta's development is likely to come piece-meal. The company will not have to wait to complete one area to move on to developing part of another. It may build a manufacturing facility in Area No. 1 along the airfield and then move on to build a smaller specialty manufacturing site or parking lot in Area No. 3, which sits on the south side of Williston Road next to the Shunpike neighborhood. Built into the master plan, however, are a series of "triggers." For example, each time a development generates 75 additional peak-hour vehicle trips in the area, the company will have to update its traffic impact study and infrastructure implementation plan. Any development in Area No. 2, which sits north of Williston Road and which the company has designated for a mix of industrial and commercial purposes, will trigger increasing water supply infrastructure. The company will have to loop a main through the area to connect to the water system before anything can be built. There are some near-certainties in this domino effect. At some point, the company, in conjunction with Vermont Agency of Transportation, will likely put in a traffic signal at Da Vinci Drive and Williston Road, the plan notes. It is also likely that it will extend Green Tree Drive, which currently ends in a cul-de-sac south of Williston Road, to connect to the state route across from Davinci Drive. The street will eventually be owned by the city. As the campus sees more buildings, Beta has also committed to creating publicly accessible civic space at 10% of the size of what it develops. While the area where Beta plans to develop is already zoned for commercial and industrial uses, it abuts a small pocket of neighborhood where the company has purchased properties on Shunpike Road. Because of this, Beta has conducted at least two neighborhood meetings between June and now. According to the meeting minutes included in the master plan, neighbors' concerns have ranged from details on the impending traffic signal at Da Vinci Drive to the accessibility of the civic spaces to concerns about rising noise levels. Beta bought the five homes on Shunpike Road to use for employee housing. The master plan does not include ancillary locations such as Technology Park because it has its own master plan, a Beta representative told residents. The company has also purchased a couple of properties in Williston, on Avenue D, that are not included in the plan. The master plan, as it was most recently presented to the review board, however, allows for the company to incorporate more land. Per a request in the plan, Beta is hoping to make small amendments to the master plan when land added to it accounts for less than a 10% change in total area. It is unclear if there would be a cap to how often it can make those amendments. However much leeway this plan may give the company, it will still need to return to the Development Review Board for site plan review for new projects within its scope. While a master plan allows for some things - such as car chargers or utility transformers not visible from the road - to go straight to permitting, larger structures and buildings are still subject to review. "They have a game plan of projects that they want to be delivering," Conner said. "They are prioritizing getting the master plan done because that's important to set up the framework for everything else."

'Future of aviation': MU flight school, electric aircraft developer announce partnership. on October 13, 2026 By Rick Steelhammer For Charleston Gazette-Mail The era of electrical aviation made its debut Friday in Charleston as a battery-powered BETA Technologies Alia CX300 made a low pass over Marshall University's Bill Noe Flight School, wagged its wings and, a few moments later, touched down at West Virginia International Yeager Airport. The rear-mounted, single-engine aircraft then taxied almost silently toward the flight school's hangar, near which the Charleston airport had recently installed a $327,500 electric-aircraft charging station. There, it was greeted by a cheering crowd of about 200, made up of flight school students, Marshall staffers, airport officers, elected officials and invited guests. "This is Serial No. 1 of our aircraft," Chris Caputo, chief of flight operations for Vermont-based BETA Technologies, said soon after he emerged from the cockpit of the five-passenger aircraft and began fielding questions from onlookers. "Since its first flight on Nov. 16, 2024," he said, "it's flown coast to coast multiple times and logged 750 hours of flight time. In my opinion, it's way safer, more efficient and easier to fly than anything out there." With the installation of its new aircraft charging station, the Charleston airport became part of a network of 65 airports across the nation - most them located east of the Mississippi - capable of recharging the lithium ion batteries used by BETA's Alia aircraft in about 35 minutes. The airports serving Martinsburg and Lewisburg also are part of that network, with Huntington's Tri-State Airport soon to follow. More than 100 charging stations are expected to be operational in coming months. In July, BETA began flying cargo and medical supplies between locations in Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania, using its Alia CX300 aircraft. In its cargo configuration, the Alia CX300 has a capacity of about 200 cubic feet and 1,250 pounds. Five Alia CX300 aircraft are now flying, "with five more coming off the line soon," according to Caputo. The BETA Alias have a cruising speed of 120 to 155 miles per hour and can operate at airports with runways under 2,500 feet long. BETA also is producing a battery-powered vertical takeoff and landing, or VTOL, aircraft, the Alia A250, designed for shorter-range missions to runway-optional locations. Only one of the electric VTOL aircraft is currently flying. Electric aircraft workforce training. Marshall's Bill Noe Flight School was the site of Friday's event because the university and BETA Technologies have formed a partnership focusing on electric aircraft workforce development and training. "Our aviation program is not solely about teaching students to fly - it is about preparing them to lead in one of the world's most dynamic and essential industries," Marshall President Brad D. Smith said at the ceremony announcing the partnership, held in the flight school's hangar. "This is a milestone moment for Marshall University aviation, as we look toward the future of aviation." Smith announced that Marshall will acquire two Alia CX300 aircraft - the airplane that made the inaugural landing at CRW and was the first to use the airport's new charging cube - and a new aircraft of the same model expected to be delivered early next year. "BETA is investing in the entire ecosystem that makes electric aviation possible - the aircraft, the charging network and the people who will fly and maintain them," said Blain Newton, BETA's chief information officer. With electric-aircraft chargers now online in Charleston, Lewisburg, Martinsburg and, soon, Huntington, "we're connecting the state to a growing network and laying the groundwork for new possibilities in regional transportation," Newton said. "We imagine a future where these aircraft connect small towns to hospitals, to jobs and to each other. It's exciting to share that progress with Marshall University and its students, who represent the next generation of aviation professionals." The new partnership with BETA Technologies "establishes Marshall University as an early adopter of - and regional leader in - advanced air mobility education," said Bill Noe, Marshall's chief aviation officer and the flight school's namesake. "By embedding electric propulsion, thermal management and modern flight controls directly into our flight and maintenance programs, we are ensuring our graduates are ready to lead the aerospace industry into the future while driving economic opportunity across Appalachia." Real-world trials and production expectations. BETA is building and flying its small fleet of Alia CX300s under a Federal Aviation Administration airworthiness certificate program, allowing the company to conduct extensive real-world trials of the aircraft. Mass production can begin after the company receives full FAA Type Certification for the aircraft, which the company expects to happen later this year or in early 2027. BETA, a multibillion dollar publicly traded company, operates a 200,000-square-foot production plant in South Burlington, Vermont. The company will be capable of producing up to 300 aircraft annually, after full FAA certification.