On one side of the airport at Burlington, Vermont, F35-Lightnings from the Air National Guard roar into the sky for training assignments at supersonic speed.
On the other side of the airfield a quieter mission is under way, Beta Technologies is pioneering commercially viable battery-powered planes and they’re coming to New Zealand.
They’re near-silent compared to the notoriously loud fighter jet flown by the Green Mountain Boys. For staff at Beta, the pace is picking up.
The company has raised US$1 billion ($1.7b) from global investors and is readying the first of its production line aircraft for delivery and Air New Zealand has moved up the queue.
There was a meeting of minds and culture when the airline met the start-up two years ago and now Beta’s Alia CX300 plane is a year earlier than planned.
The airline will fly a battery-electric aircraft in a technical demonstrator programme based in Hamilton and Wellington, with flights scheduled from April next year.
The Air New Zealand aircraft at the end of the production line at Beta’s sparkling new manufacturing plant in Burlington is still branded “experimental”.
The airline is at this stage dipping a toe in, to initially test and assess their suitability for commercial operations in New Zealand, initially for cargo flights.
There are still regulatory hurdles, even before the test flights and freight operations and if the airline opts to extend to carrying passengers on short hops, that will be years away.
Battery-powered planes have flown here before and are used worldwide for training (as Beta does in Vermont) but integration into Air NZ’s fleet would represent a massive leap for the airline which is looking for ways of cutting carbon emissions.
It would also be a coup for Beta, which has flown the equivalent of twice around the world in its trial planes.
It has orders from the likes of parcel giant UPS and has flown trial missions for the US military but hasn’t seen its planes yet fly with an airline’s livery. Real-world operations will help expand on the massive database already built up from the real-time information captured from the plane and its batteries during test flights.
The Air NZ plane rolled off the assembly line last month, a year after Beta opened its 1.8ha production facility at Patrick Leahy Burlington International Airport.
The privately-owned plane maker – which recently raised US$318m in funding largely from Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund – has big ambitions. The building can be doubled in size to hit a company goal of producing up to 300 electric aircraft a year.
And last week a group of Air New Zealand executives, operations bosses, the Herald and media from Australia and the Today Show from Washington DC travelled to Beta in snow-dusted Burlington, Vermont, just south of the Canadian border.
Buying the multi-million dollar battery plane is part of the airline’s Mission Next Gen Aircraft programme and while its operations may just nibble at the edges of Air New Zealand’s 4.3 million tonnes of CO2 emissions (in the 2024 financial year), it’s seen as a small but important part of a strategy to cut pollution that is been re-worked after it found existing targets were not achievable.
The Alia is around the same size of the rugged and reliable Cessna Caravan (and both reportedly carry a US$3m price tag) so Beta will be in the same market for sales.
It will also compete against other battery plane makers. The time and cost of programmes has filtered out less serious players but a handful like Beta are in late stage development.
Hannifin says Air New Zealand has its first customer locked in. “We think it’s an investment well made, it helps to have a commercial partner in New Zealand Post and we’ll be carrying payload that will have a commercial value so you don’t have to worry about selling tickets to passengers.”
The airline has been under fire for high ticket prices, especially at peak times, and investment in the Beta planes by the airline facing financial and operational headwinds would not push fares up further.
“We’re always conscious to not just add cost on our passengers. This is helping us wash its face by having a commercial partner. We acknowledge that the cost of living crisis in New Zealand is impacting all of us and we do everything we can to manage the cost of flying,” said Hannifin.
The airline has also been dealing with engine issues, not just the long term global problem with engines on its jet fleets, but a spate of shut downs on smaller regional planes.
But like EVs compared to combustion engine cars, Beta aircraft should be more reliable. They have just around 7000 parts, as opposed to up to a million components in the (bigger) ATR72 turbo props Air NZ operates on regional routes.
The plane will be transported to New Zealand by ship. It will be the smallest plane in the airline’s fleet but Hannifin describes it as its most exciting.
“The technology behind this aircraft is incredible, and we’re very proud to be able to bring it to Aotearoa a little earlier to show the country what the future of domestic air travel will look like.”
And because of the plane’s “novel” power source, many Kiwis will get a good look at it in action.
Unlike traditional aircraft there’s no incentive to climb to high altitudes to operate most efficiently – quite the opposite. Although it has 14,000 ft (4200m) maximum altitude, Alia will fly at the lowest safe level to conserve battery power. Spotters may well see it before they hear it - Beta says the Alia is up to seven times quieter than equivalent traditionally-powered planes.
It will be able to operate to remote locations too. While fast-charging 60kW mobile chargers will be based at Hamilton, Wellington and Blenheim airports (to recharge the aircraft in one hour to 90 minutes), like an EV, it comes equipped with a charging cable carried on board to plug into mains power at any airstrip.
Its running costs are a fraction of traditional planes. Beta founder and chief executive Kyle Clark says it would cost about US$600-$700 to operate a Caravan, for a flight of up to two hours in the Alia the bill for charging would be around US$16 to US$17 although there would be about US$200 worth of battery degradation.
While the energy density from batteries is improving - around 7% a year with new technology coming down the line - sceptics say this turnaround time and power-to-weight ratio makes batteries difficult for commercial operations.
The battery alone makes up nearly half the weight of the 3.5 tonne Alia.
One who has his doubts is Auckland-based Eagle Aviation Consulting chief executive Simon Russell who is more enthusiastic about hydrogen (which has been Air NZ is also studying) as the fuel of the future.
Russell says there are concerns about putting more batteries into bigger planes. Unlike aircraft using liquid fuels, the planes touch down with the same weight as when they took off, making landings more challenging.
Chief operational integrity and safety officer Captain David Morgan has been flying with the airline for close to 40 years, starting on Fokker Friendships in 1985 and was in Vermont.
“I thought I was on the cutting edge of technology then. It’s great to be here and looking at, at what’s probably the future of aviation.”
Another executive who made the quick trip to Burlington was chief operating officer Alex Marren who was assessing just where the new plane could fit into the airline. She said the transition to battery power could be similar to when the transition by airlines from turboprops to the jet age revolutionised travel in the 1950s.
Morgan says the Beta aircraft itself is mainly conventional about it being carbon fibre with a high single straight wing, fixed undercarriage and fixed pitch propeller. What’s striking about the cockpit is the lack of switches and dials – an iPad style display is the main feature - but after work in the simulator, Morgan says it handles like a traditional plane.
“It’s got a side stick controller which is very similar to the Airbus and when you pull back, it goes up and you push forward it goes down. What’s novel is the electric propulsion system in the aircraft and the batteries.”
His main task in Vermont was getting an understanding of how that works from a technical perspective, and also from a pilot’s perspective.
“It’s very important to understand how much energy you’ve got available to you to conduct a flight and what you’ve got at the end of the flight if you have to divert.”
The cockpit has room for two pilots making it ideal for training and getting flying hours up.
Morgan spent two days at Beta’s training school, where he went through an induction course.
“I could start to think about how we would, if we inducted the aircraft into the operation, train pilots to operate the aircraft, what level of detail that we need to go into, what route training is required, etc,” he says.
“The other thing too is that we need to work in partnership with the New Zealand Civil Aviation Authority and for them giving them the confidence that we’re not putting either ourselves or the other people at risk by operating this aircraft.”
Most rules are designed around legacy aircraft – internal combustion planes. CAA’s acting deputy chief executive system practice and design, Mark von Motschelnitz says the organisation was working closely with Air New Zealand, Beta and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the US.
Type Certification (TC) of the aircraft is being undertaken by the FAA.
The CX300 will undergo CAA NZ Type Acceptance (TA) to ensure it meets applicable New Zealand rules, and Air New Zealand’s proposed operation of the aircraft will then be certified to ensure they have the necessary personnel, training, information and systems in place to operate it safely.
To enable Air New Zealand to meet their project deadlines CAA will undertake the TA concurrently with the FAA’s type certification process, von Motschelnitz says.
Air New Zealand is 51% owned by the taxpayer and there’s strong pressure to maintain regional services – but they’re commercially marginal or worse.
The airline ended 19-seat Beechcraft plane services in 2016 and will quit its 50-seater Q300s by the end of the decade. While the first generation Alia plane could seat just five passengers, much bigger aircraft are on the horizon as battery technology evolves and capital allows it to build them.
Morgan says Air NZ faced a number of challenges to connect New Zealand’s regions.
One is the availability of a suitable alternative aircraft from the legacy manufacturers, and there aren’t many options about for something that’s cost-effective.
He says Air NZ could “potentially” carry passengers in battery-powered planes.
“These are early days. It (Beta) will innovate further and undoubtedly it’ll develop as well.”
Air New Zealand has bought one Alia, has options on two more and the right to purchase a further 20. It would select two project pilots to build a team around.
The planes fly at a relatively sedate 135-knot (250km/h) cruising speed, the maximum range for now is 336 nautical miles (622km) but he’s not expecting a shortage of applicants.
“Pilots love flying airplanes. It’s our craft - we want to give it a go.”
Kyle Clark is a Vermont native (like many of the 800-plus who now work at the company) and has a goal of moving people and cargo around the world safely, cost-effectively and with minimal impact on the environment.
The one-time professional ice hockey player was awarded Harvard’s engineering thesis of the year in 2004 for his work in flight dynamics and control algorithms. It’s then when he started thinking about battery-powered planes.
“There’s been a lot of changes and improvements in the thinking around electric aviation since then. But that original kind of kernel of ideas has persisted through what we have now.”
He’s laid back but relentlessly driven and his thinking about battery planes was parked until 2017 when he met broadcasting company and biotech firm founder Martine Rothblatt, who had a very clear application for electric aviation.
“She actually created her (United Therapeutics) company because her daughter was sick and was diagnosed with pulmonary hypertension, given a couple of years to live and she said, screw that she was not taking that for an answer and put all of her money and her resources into finding a cure for her daughter.”
It turned out that the drug that saved her daughter was applicable to thousands of people and her company rocketed to its current valuation of US$17b, making pharmaceuticals and organs.
“That’s where we enter. How are they going to move the organs around sustainably and at a low cost from hospital to hospital?”
It’s a critical cargo mission where medics want to avoid handing off the organs between many different vehicles.
“A singular vehicle for critical cargo moving was the unlock to take a lot of these ideas and say, ‘geez, we can make a commercially viable’,” he says.
Rothblatt remains a major investor in the company which will make vertical take-off and landing aircraft but not until it’s got its conventional planes approved by regulators.
“If you want to be vertical, you need more than just the airplane. You need helipads and verti ports. You need the pilots that are trained to do it. With a fixed-wing all you have to do is replace a Cessna Caravan with an Alia.”
“One thing led to another, they came and witnessed test flights, they came and analysed our data, our safety records and we ended up winning their contract. They had hard technical questions because they weren’t looking for a PR stunt.”
There’s a sense of family at Beta (Clark’s wife and daughter work there), there’s free healthcare with an on-site doctor, catered free healthy food daily, in the manufacturing hangar a rainbow flag flies proudly next to the Stars and Stripes the flag of Vermont. That’s the state with the highest propensity to vote for the Democrats in last month’s election and home to left-wing independent senator Bernie Sanders.
While its sub-zero early winter temperatures outside, it’s warm in the cavernous manufacturing plant with deep geothermal wells providing heat and 1.2ha of solar panels providing enough power at times to sell back into the grid.
Beta’s Instagram account shows that at their sprawling rural property the Clarks throw a mean staff summer party which looks something like a mini version of Rhythm and Vines, but with horse riding.
Its approach to manufacturing also differs from other plane makers.
Clark says that some small parts such as screws are bought off the shelf but he has a clear line on outsourcing to make the largely carbon fibre aircraft: Don’t do it.
Clark has been test pilot from the outset of the programme and knows how important it is to get things right.
“We have a saying here, it’s care the most. When you make the thing, when you have these technicians (with) people, they care about flying the planes they care the most. We found that when you outsource things, you just put a barrier to caring and understanding.”
Making the tools and jigs to make the planes has been hugely expensive. Beta cuts the carbon fibre, assembles the batteries in clean rooms, (there’s 3000 cells in each of the five batteries that go into the Alia) makes the tiny 500 horsepower motors (there’s a spare one in case of failure) and does its own coding for computers it builds.
“It’s not necessarily us observing Boeing and Spirit. It’s really recognising that caring the most matters a lot.”
Also, in such a new industry technology is changing quickly and improving fast and to capitalise on this the work was better kept in-house.
Beta aircraft could be developed in future to fly without pilots. While not Air NZ’s motivation to work with Beta (David Morgan says “the travelling public in NZ isn’t ready for it”) the digitally controlled fly-by-wire systems were ideally suited to it, says Clark.
“All the systems are digitally enabled so that you won’t see all the circuit breakers inside. There’s four switches - you don’t want to make a robot flick switches.”
Asked how a green aviation company will fare under President Donald Trump and his ‘’drill baby drill’’ approach to energy, Clark isn’t so worried.
“We hear a lot about the political environment affecting business. We’re in an interesting spot where we have a technology that’s addressing an economic need of providing services to rural communities (and) being very accessible to a large number of people.”
He says he works with both the Republicans and the Democrats.
“It’s is a very bipartisan argument to bring clean, sustainable high technology and useful rural accessibility to the forefront.”
Beta is putting many of its employees and customers through pilot training, initially in its simulator. Media were also given a spin last week in Vermont with the sim putting us “in” Wellington with a fair rendering of the airport and harbour out the large windows giving it a familiar feel.
Flight instructor Tyler Seeholzer ran the Herald through the pre-flight procedures. Unlike internal combustion planes where engines have to be warmed, battery power is instantaneous and in the fly-by-wire cockpit there are just a fraction of the number of switches (just eight) and dials.
There’s an inceptor or side stick control to climb, descend and turn and like a helicopter you twist to control yaw. The only thing you use the foot pedals for is to brake the plane on the ground as you taxi on the ground.
Take off is at 85 knots (157km/h) and immediately afterwards Seeholzer encourages we complete rookies to let go.
“Most traditional aircraft with fly by cable controls have turning tendencies that pilots are constantly correcting. You can set the aircraft’s direction and speed and then let go.”
We “flew” around Wellington harbour at 1500ft before heading back to land.
Landing was a little faster than takeoff. It wasn’t glass smooth to be fair, but in a generous in-house tradition with newbies in the sim, the Beta staffers encouragingly described it as being “just like butter”.
Next day, it was time for real-world flying in a battery plane. Beta has bought tiny Pipistrel battery planes to train its pilots and to further study the performance of battery power.
Flight instructor Jordan Potvin took me on a 45-minute flight above Burlington, a city of about 45,000 on the shores of Lake Champlain where he grew up with his family. Like all battery planes, the Pipistrel plane is relatively quiet and there’s no fumes. We touched down with 40% battery power left in the 650kg Pipistrel.
It would take about the same time to recharge it and would cost less than a bus fare. Potvin estimates we used about US$3 of electricity.
The Herald travelled to Vermont courtesy of Air New Zealand. Grant Bradley has been working at the Herald since 1993. He is the Business Herald’s deputy editor and covers aviation and tourism.
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