BETA and Metro Aviation Test Electric Aircraft for Texas Emergency Services

BETA Tech­nolo­gies, Metro Avi­a­tion and Wash­ing­ton Coun­ty Emer­gency Med­ical Ser­vices have demon­strat­ed the use of an all-elec­tric air­craft for emer­gency response oper­a­tions in rur­al Texas.

The demon­stra­tion took place in Bren­ham this month using BETA’s ALIA con­ven­tion­al take­off and land­ing (CTOL) air­craft. It was BETA’s first flight in Texas under the US Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion and Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Administration’s eVTOL Inte­gra­tion Pilot Pro­gram (eIPP) and formed part of Project Nexus, led by the Texas Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion.

The flight exam­ined how an elec­tric air­craft could trans­port dis­as­ter-response equip­ment along­side Wash­ing­ton Coun­ty EMS’s exist­ing heli­copter and ground-based resources. The coun­ty EMS sys­tem responds to more than 7,000 calls each year across an area of approx­i­mate­ly 700 square miles.

Wash­ing­ton Coun­ty EMS oper­ates as a third-ser­vice emer­gency med­ical agency, pro­vid­ing pre-hos­pi­tal care, emer­gency and non-emer­gency trans­fers, crit­i­cal care and res­cue para­medic ser­vices. Its response area includes loca­tions around the Bra­zos Riv­er and Lake Somerville.

Metro Avi­a­tion has pro­vid­ed avi­a­tion ser­vices to Wash­ing­ton Coun­ty EMS since 2022 and oper­ates an Air­bus EC145 heli­copter for the agency. The demon­stra­tion there­fore focused on how elec­tric air­craft could be incor­po­rat­ed into an estab­lished emer­gency med­ical sys­tem rather than replac­ing exist­ing heli­copter oper­a­tions.

Project Nexus is also test­ing elec­tric air­craft oper­a­tions between Galve­ston, Sug­ar Land and Bren­ham. A BETA Charge Cube charg­ing sta­tion is already oper­a­tional in Galve­ston, pro­vid­ing part of the infra­struc­ture for the route.

The pro­gramme is intend­ed to exam­ine the oper­a­tional require­ments for inte­grat­ing elec­tric air­craft and charg­ing infra­struc­ture with exist­ing avi­a­tion ser­vices in Texas. For emer­gency response appli­ca­tions, the part­ners are eval­u­at­ing how air­craft could move equip­ment and poten­tial­ly sup­port oth­er mis­sions where con­ven­tion­al ground trans­port may be slow­er or affect­ed by dis­rup­tion.

The Bren­ham demon­stra­tion also gave Wash­ing­ton Coun­ty EMS per­son­nel an oppor­tu­ni­ty to observe the air­craft and dis­cuss poten­tial appli­ca­tions with­in the county’s emer­gency med­ical sys­tem.

Thomas Sleightholm

Thomas is a con­tent writer for eVTOL Insights, cov­er­ing all aspects of the glob­al Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty ecosys­tem. Got a sto­ry for him? Please send an email to editorial@evtolinsights.com

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