BETA Technologies Participates in “USAF Multi-Day Agile Combat Employment Scenario” 

BETA Tech­nolo­gies and its ALIA CTOL Air­craft remains busy, work­ing along­side the USAF. Last week, the com­pa­ny joined the Air Nation­al Guard (ANG) in an agile com­bat employ­ment (ACE) and domes­tic response exer­cise based out of the Savan­nah Air Dom­i­nance Centre/Combat Readi­ness Train­ing Cen­tre, reports a free release.

Oper­at­ing along­side a num­ber of ANG units and mil­i­tary air­craft, the ALIA served as the “first elec­tric air­craft to par­tic­i­pate in a com­plex Agile Com­bat Employ­ment sce­nario, demon­strat­ing its oper­a­tional capa­bil­i­ties in a week-long mil­i­tary mis­sion assess­ment sequence,” explains the release. 

The ACE exer­cise, host­ed by the Savan­nah Com­bat Readi­ness Train­ing Cen­tre, includ­ed more than 350 Air­men from six U.S states. Dur­ing the event, the par­tic­i­pants com­plet­ed var­i­ous mis­sion exer­cis­es “to demon­strate capa­bil­i­ties and readi­ness, includ­ing relo­cat­ing to bases swift­ly and with­out a cen­tral com­mand, oper­at­ing in dis­persed loca­tions, and sim­u­lat­ing attack and casu­al­ty sce­nar­ios.”

In a mis­sion sim­u­lat­ing an Euro­pean bat­tle dra­ma, the ALIA served as a car­go craft for mul­ti­ple dai­ly flights, inte­grat­ing into a sce­nario response along­side Nation­al Guard air­craft. 

The CTOL moved car­go from a start­ing base in Savan­nah to three sur­round­ing loca­tions, con­duct­ing 16 sor­ties over a five day exer­cise, aid­ing the USAF capa­bil­i­ties. The release con­tin­ues, “The BETA ALIA dis­played effec­tive response time and readi­ness upon dis­patch, sup­port­ing the Air­men con­duct­ing live exer­cise oper­a­tions with key resource trans­port and short-notice med­ical mis­sions. Spe­cif­ic mis­sions that ALIA com­plet­ed dur­ing the exer­cise includ­ed tac­ti­cal resup­ply, sim­u­lat­ed casu­al­ty evac­u­a­tion, and air­craft ground sup­port equip­ment deliv­ery to the main base in advance of an evac­u­a­tion.”

Kyle Clark, BETA’s Founder and CEO, remarked, “Par­tic­i­pat­ing in this mis­sion was an impor­tant oppor­tu­ni­ty for us to demon­strate real-world util­i­ty and move from devel­op­ment test­ing to oper­a­tional­ly rel­e­vant test­ing. To sup­port and oper­ate along­side more than 350 active duty air­men from across the coun­try, was an incred­i­ble moment for learn­ing and advance­ment as ALIA moves clos­er and clos­er to in-mar­ket oper­a­tions.”

Chris Caputo, For­mer AF Fight­er Squadron Com­man­der and BETA Test Pilot, added, “It was incred­i­bly val­i­dat­ing to see first­hand how the air­craft was able to accom­plish mean­ing­ful mis­sions in sup­port of a large-scale train­ing exer­cise, with very min­i­mal assets. We were able to accept mis­sions from an alert sta­tus and be air­borne with­in min­utes, fly to a con­tin­gency loca­tion, com­plete­ly shut­down the ALIA unload and/or load car­go, and be air­borne again with­in 10 min­utes.” 

He con­tin­ued, “The air­craft’s flex­i­bil­i­ty, low cost, and excep­tion­al­ly high util­i­sa­tion rate, not to men­tion its inter­op­er­abil­i­ty with our own and exist­ing infra­struc­ture, makes it an ide­al asset to help sus­tain the com­bat capa­bil­i­ties of the USAF.”

BETA’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in these live exer­cis­es demon­strates some of the key impacts elec­tric avi­a­tion can have on mil­i­tary ser­vices, includ­ing faster mis­sion gen­er­a­tion and response time, crit­i­cal car­go trans­port effi­cien­cy and cost. This sim­u­lat­ed mis­sion also show­cased how elec­tric avi­a­tion can seam­less­ly fit into mil­i­tary oper­a­tions, yet requires few­er resources for oper­a­tion and demon­strates enhanced rapid response capa­bil­i­ties.

This most recent exer­cise fol­lows BETA’s deploy­ment with the Depart­ment of Defence at Eglin AFB/Duke Field. The com­pa­ny’s long-stand­ing part­ner­ship with AFWERX under the Agili­ty Prime Pro­gram began in 2020 and has led to col­lab­o­ra­tions with the Air Force and Army which have assist­ed in accel­er­at­ing the devel­op­ment and adop­tion of elec­tric avi­a­tion and infra­struc­ture with­in the U.S mil­i­tary and com­mer­cial mar­ket. 

For more infor­ma­tion

https://www.beta.team/

https://afwerx.com/divisions/prime/agility-prime/

(All images: BETA Tech­nolo­gies)

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