- Beta Technologies' Alia electric plane made a stop in Salt Lake City.
- A 'historic' electric aircraft agreement received a $2 million investment.
- Air mobility is touted as the future of transportation solutions.
The 50-foot arched wings and twin tail of Beta Technologies' Alia aircraft evoked a feeling of flight even as the electric-powered aircraft sat idle in a private hangar at Salt Lake City International Airport.
And it’s not hard to see how the design drew inspiration from the Arctic tern, the world’s longest migrating bird and a species that regularly logs 25,000 flight miles a year traveling from its Arctic breeding grounds to Antarctica and back again.
The Alia took flight in Salt Lake City on Monday, the first in a series of demonstration visits across Utah this week, just six weeks after Beta signed a memorandum of understanding with Utah aerospace and defense group 47G, with support from the Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity and the Utah Department of Transportation.
Electric aircraft agreement takes flight in Utah
The benchmark agreement outlines a plan to create new, airborne options for transporting goods and people around the state, reducing emissions and making Utah a forward player in an emerging tech segment that’s expected to grow into a multi-billion dollar industry in the coming years.
Utah State University graduate and Beta Technologies flight test engineer Emma Davis made the journey from Beta’s Vermont headquarters for Monday’s event. She said she was proud to be back in Utah to showcase a “quiet and reliable aircraft in a place that is full of rich aerospace history.”
Davis has been with Beta for 3½ years and joined the company after a stint with helicopter specialists Sikorsky Aircraft. She is helping usher Alia on the path toward FAA certification, a process expected to be completed some time next year.
She said Alia, which comes in both conventional runway-to-runway takeoff and landing configuration as well as a vertical takeoff and landing version, is a high-tech aircraft that has embraced elegance when it comes to finding design and operational solutions.
“What makes electric aviation really cool is, it’s very simple,” Davis said. “If you were to look at our aircraft compared to a regular combustion aircraft you would see the simplicity of it is amazing. And that simplicity allows us to build a very reliable and low-cost aircraft.”
That design elegance also translates to the cockpit, according to Beta pilot and flight instructor Noah Ranallo, who flew Alia from Las Vegas to Salt Lake City and is one of a team of pilots flying the electric plane around Utah.
“The ease of use is really huge,” Ranallo told the Deseret News. “There is a lot less to monitor than in a combustion-powered aircraft ... there are very few things that a pilot needs to do. It’s really stable to fly.”
Two ways to fly
Beta is working to certify two electric aircraft, the Alia CTOL (conventional takeoff and landing) and the Alia VTOL (vertical takeoff and landing). The aircraft are essentially identical in their basic design with the conventional variant powered by a single, five-blade rear-mounted propeller and the vertical-enabled craft employing the same five-blade, rear-mounted propeller as well as four two-blade horizontal lift rotors. Both aircraft are capable of carrying five passengers and have a maximum cruising speed of 135 knots, about 155 mph.
The Utah Legislature signed off on a $2 million allocation during the recently completed 2025 general session to begin laying the groundwork for electric aircraft operations, a first installment on the cost of adding airfield charging stations to the state’s airport facilities.
While the provider for that equipment will be determined through a competitive bidding process overseen by UDOT, Beta will be in the mix thanks to charging technology the company has developed alongside its aircraft innovations.
Beta’s UL-certified Cube charging system is capable of recharging an aircraft in an hour and is also compatible with recharging ground-based electric vehicles.
UDOT executive director Carlos Braceras said the development of electric aircraft operations in Utah is part of the effort to solve and future-proof growing pressures on the state’s road systems in the face of one of the fastest growing populations in the nation.
“We move people — and the things they need — using more than just roads," Braceras said in a statement. “These demonstrations are more than just a technology showcase — they represent a fundamental shift in how we think about mobility.
“As Utah’s population grows and we face increasing demands on our ground transportation system, we know that advanced air mobility offers innovative new solutions to address our evolving mobility needs.”
Cheaper, cleaner air transport and travel
Beta Technologies was founded in 2017 by veteran entrepreneur and Harvard-educated engineer and test pilot Kyle Clark.
In a January interview, Clark said the agreement with Utah signifies a groundbreaking moment and places the state among the leaders of air mobility development in the U.S.
“What’s so special about this is to have a state leaning into the effort,” Clark said. “It becomes a mutually-aligned deployment ... that includes airports, governance, operations, all those things that are really important to launch this.”
Clark said in addition to zero-emissions operation, Beta aircraft are significantly less expensive to operate with the per-mile cost of freight transport about half that of conventionally powered aircraft. He also noted that Beta enters the agreement with significant ties to Utah as about 28% of Arial components, comprising half of the aircraft’s value, come from Utah-based manufacturers.
