Beta Technologies, Avflight Partner with Golden Triangle Regional Airport “to Install Mississippi’s First Electric Aviation Charger”

BETA Tech­nolo­gies flew its all-elec­tric ALIA air­craft this week to the Gold­en Tri­an­gle Region­al Air­port (GTRA), to con­duct the inau­gur­al charge on the new­ly com­mis­sioned air­side charg­er, reports a press release. 

BETA and Avflight are col­lab­o­rat­ing with GTRA to install and com­mis­sion the first-ever elec­tric avi­a­tion charg­ing sta­tion in the state of Mis­sis­sip­pi.  The util­i­ty com­pa­ny involved is 4‑County Elec­tric Pow­er Asso­ci­a­tion.

The release explains, “BETA’s charg­ing sta­tions are mul­ti­modal and inter­op­er­a­ble, capa­ble of pow­er­ing elec­tric air­craft and ground vehi­cles alike.  The charg­ers are designed with the com­bined charg­ing sys­tem stan­dard to pri­ori­tise vehi­cle com­pat­i­bil­i­ty, offer­ing uni­ver­sal util­i­ty to ben­e­fit the var­ied patrons of Avflight and GTRA.”

Matt Dow­ell, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of GTRA, com­ment­ed, “This new instal­la­tion is a sig­nif­i­cant step toward advanc­ing the air­port and region’s avi­a­tion infra­struc­ture and sup­port­ing the growth of elec­tric air­craft tech­nol­o­gy.”

Joe Max Hig­gins Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the company’s devel­op­ment, added, “BETA’s deci­sion to place the state’s first elec­tric charg­ing sta­tion for air­craft at the Gold­en Tri­an­gle Region­al Air­port is an indi­ca­tion that we are bring­ing lead­ing tech­nol­o­gy to our state.”  

Emma Davis, a Flight Test Engi­neer with Beta Tech­nolo­gies, demon­strates how to use the new elec­tric charg­ing pumps installed at Gold­en Tri­an­gle Region­al Air­port. (Cred­it: Kevin Edwards/Dispatch Staff)

The release con­tin­ues, “GTR has installed one Lev­el 3 Fast-Charg­er locat­ed inside the fence (air side), which will pri­mar­i­ly be used by elec­tric air­craft, and one Lev­el 2 Charg­er locat­ed out­side the fence (car side), which will pri­mar­i­ly be used by mem­bers of the pub­lic who dri­ve elec­tric vehi­cles.  With this new infra­struc­ture, the air­port is well-posi­tioned to sup­port the elec­tric trans­porta­tion future.”

Nate Ward, Head of BETA’s Net­work Devel­op­ment, remarked, “As elec­tric trans­porta­tion con­tin­ues to grow and elec­tric avi­a­tion specif­i­cal­ly moves clos­er to mar­ket oper­a­tions, charg­ing infra­struc­ture will only become more and more impor­tant.  As we con­tin­ue to deploy our charg­ers in key mar­kets, and as the entire indus­try con­tin­ues to grow, these charg­ers will help accel­er­ate con­nec­tiv­i­ty across the coun­try.”

To cel­e­brate the charg­ing inau­gu­ra­tion, GTRA held an event for rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the col­lab­o­ra­tion. Emma Davis, a BETA Flight Test Engi­neer showed the atten­dees how the charg­er worked and then explained, “There isn’t a charge sta­tion infra­struc­ture out there for elec­tric avi­a­tion, so someone’s got to do that. If we want to fly our air­craft through­out the coun­try, what’s the best way to do that? It’s to have a charge sta­tion that we’ve built and imple­ment­ed in place.”

This new charg­er site in Mis­sis­sip­pi is part of a grow­ing nation­al net­work of elec­tric infra­struc­ture that BETA is build­ing out across the U.S.  Over the past sev­er­al months, BETA has com­mis­sioned five charg­ers in five states and has sold them to the Depart­ment of Defense, Atlantic Avi­a­tion and Archer Avi­a­tion.  Cur­rent­ly, BETA has charg­ers online at 18 site loca­tions from Ver­mont to Arkansas, Alaba­ma to Flori­da with more than 55 addi­tion­al sites in devel­op­ment for pub­lic and pri­vate use by com­mer­cial, mil­i­tary and med­ical enti­ties.

For more infor­ma­tion

https://www.beta.team/

https://www.avflight.com/

https://www.gtra.com/

(Top image: ALIA expe­ri­enc­ing its Inau­gur­al Charge at GTRA/Credit — BETA))

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