Beta Technologies has officially opened a new production facility in Vermont, which could one day manufacture up to 300 aircraft per year, the company has announced.
The company will manufacture and assemble its Alia CTOL and Alia VTOL for both commercial and military customers at the new 188,500 square-foot (17,500-square-meter) facility at the Patrick Leahy Burlington International Airport. Beta said the new facility is expected to create hundreds of jobs.
Kyle Clark, founder and CEO of Beta, said during a press conference that the new production facility was first discussed about two years ago, when the company “started looking at how we would move to our next step — how we were going to build this business into a production company.”
There were 11 sites under consideration at that point, Clark said, though ultimately Beta opted for a 75-year lease with the airport on the Vermont facility. Over the next quarter, the new production site will “start to fill out as we enter production,” Clark said.
The new facility is based on a 40-acre (16-hectare) site, though there is the potential to support a significant expansion, with a Phase II build-out offering the chance to double the size of the facility. The company said it has begun production with the installation of assembly tooling and the initiation of various system production lines.
The fixed-wing Alia CTOL is aimed at airport-to-airport missions while maximizing range and payload. Meanwhile, the Alia VTOL has a lift-plus-cruise design that delivers the ability to take off and land vertically. The company has so far flown more than 500 full-scale, piloted flights on Beta-built battery systems, it stated, and has conducted more than 10,000 hours of testing on electric motors produced on pilot production lines.
Beta said it opened the new production facility following a series of steps to ensure production readiness. It has refined pilot production line efficiency and flow for its internally developed technologies and systems. This includes battery packs, electric motors and inverters.
Additionally, the company has developed quality management systems and manufacturing process procedures and standards, Beta stated, working with the Federal Aviation Administration to certify them.
The new facility is designed to be sustainable. For example, it has 260 geothermal wells to provide energy for temperature control in the building, according to the company, and almost three acres of roof-mounted solar panels to help develop a net-zero site.
The company has worked with a range of partners, including Advanced Integration Technology (AIT) as its “industrialization partner.” AIT is utilizing its process development, engineering core competencies and vertically-integrated manufacturing capabilities to provide automated equipment and precision tooling for primary structure assembly at the new facility, according to Beta.
Other partners include Garmin, Albany Engineered Composites, and Sensata Technologies.
