“BETA Technologies, Bristow, Avinor, CAA Advance Plans for Norway’s First International Test Arena as ALIA CX300 Comes off Production Line”

BETA Tech­nolo­gies announced this week an agree­ment for demon­stra­tion flights with Bris­tow Nor­way, reports a press release. This comes a year after Avi­nor and the Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty (CAA) entered a col­lab­o­ra­tion to estab­lish Nor­way as an inter­na­tion­al test are­na for zero and low-emis­sion avi­a­tion. The sign­ing cer­e­mo­ny took place at Bergen Air­port, Fles­land.

These flights will be for car­go only con­duct­ed using BETA’s ALIA CX300 con­ven­tion­al take-off and land­ing (eCTOL) air­craft, the company’s sec­ond air­craft from the pro­duc­tion line in Burling­ton, Ver­mont. It will be flown by Bris­tow Nor­way and is to oper­ate ini­tial­ly between Sta­vanger Air­port and Bergen Air­port in the sum­mer, with the entire route com­menc­ing from the Autumn.

Jon-Ivar Nygård, Nor­we­gian Min­is­ter of Trans­port, com­ment­ed, “The gov­ern­men­t’s goal in the Nation­al Avi­a­tion Strat­e­gy and the Nation­al Trans­port Plan 2025–2036 (NTP) is to accel­er­ate the tran­si­tion to zero and low-emis­sion avi­a­tion. To achieve this, one bil­lion kro­ner has been allo­cat­ed.” He added, “With an avi­a­tion indus­try com­mit­ted to reduc­ing emis­sions, we have a strong foun­da­tion for the ear­ly adop­tion of new tech­nolo­gies.”

The aim of the test are­na is to gain knowl­edge and learn­ing, while prepar­ing the ecosys­tem and set the foun­da­tion for scal­ing. This means involv­ing air­lines, man­u­fac­tur­ers, sup­pli­er indus­tries, the ener­gy sec­tor and oth­er stake­hold­ers.

Kar­i­anne Hel­land Strand, Exec­u­tive VP for Sus­tain­abil­i­ty, Con­cept, and Infra­struc­ture Devel­op­ment at Avi­nor, remarked, “Avi­nor’s role is to facil­i­tate the infra­struc­ture at air­ports and make the air­space avail­able for those who wish to test var­i­ous zero and low-emis­sion air­craft in an oper­a­tional envi­ron­ment. At present, we cur­rent­ly have a pro­cure­ment process under­way for fast charg­ers for elec­tric air­craft in Bergen and Sta­vanger to accom­mo­date the first test flight.”

(The Sign­ing Cer­e­mo­ny — from left to right: Dave Stepanek (Bris­tow), Niels Espen Arentzen (Beta), Lars Kob­ber­stad (Nor­we­gian Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty) and Kar­i­anne H. Strand (Avi­nor))

Pri­or to acti­vat­ing the test are­na, a sup­pli­er of charg­ers will be select­ed for both Sta­vanger and Bergen, with a dead­line for the deliv­ery of a charg­er to be installed at Sta­vanger Air­port by June 1st. Bergen Air­port will have a mobile charg­er, which is to be deliv­ered by August 15th. 

Patrick Buck­les, BETA’s Sales Lead, said, “This year, as we oper­a­tionalise this tech­nol­o­gy, we’re excit­ed to show­case how its low-cost, high-reli­a­bil­i­ty oper­a­tions can serve mar­kets all over the world, includ­ing Nor­way.”

Dave Stepanek, Exec­u­tive VP and Chief Trans­for­ma­tion Offi­cer for Bris­tow Group, con­clud­ed, “This reg­u­la­to­ry sand­box eval­u­a­tion project exem­pli­fies our phi­los­o­phy of crawl, walk, run for ear­ly adop­tion of new avi­a­tion tech­nolo­gies and solid­i­fies the com­mit­ment to our vision to be a leader in inno­v­a­tive and sus­tain­able avi­a­tion.”  

The air­craft to be used, BETA’s sec­ond pro­duc­tion-intent one, has already received air­wor­thi­ness cer­ti­fi­ca­tion for VFR, IFR, day and night fly­ing from the FAA. 

It will arrive in Nor­way lat­er this year.

For more infor­ma­tion

https://www.beta.team

(Top image: BETA Tech­nolo­gies ALIA)

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