BETA Tests Electric Aviation for Urgent Medical Cargo Transport in Utah

BETA Tech­nolo­gies has com­plet­ed five days of elec­tric air­craft oper­a­tions in Utah to assess the poten­tial for trans­port­ing time-sen­si­tive med­ical car­go, includ­ing radio­phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals used in can­cer diag­no­sis and treat­ment.

The flights were con­duct­ed under the US Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion and Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Administration’s eVTOL Inte­gra­tion Pilot Pro­gram (eIPP), in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Utah Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion (UDOT), aero­space indus­try organ­i­sa­tion 47G and region­al car­go oper­a­tor Alpine Air Express.

The pro­gramme used BETA’s all-elec­tric ALIA CTOL, a con­ven­tion­al take-off and land­ing air­craft, to demon­strate how elec­tric avi­a­tion could sup­port region­al med­ical logis­tics across Utah. The part­ners are assess­ing whether elec­tric air­craft could com­ple­ment exist­ing car­go oper­a­tions and improve access to spe­cial­ist med­i­cines in com­mu­ni­ties sep­a­rat­ed by long dis­tances and chal­leng­ing ter­rain.

Radio­phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals con­tain radioac­tive iso­topes that decay over time, lim­it­ing how long they remain effec­tive. BETA cit­ed flu­o­rodeoxyglu­cose (FDG), used in med­ical imag­ing for can­cer diag­no­sis, as an exam­ple: the sub­stance can lose half its activ­i­ty in approx­i­mate­ly 110 min­utes.

Alpine Air cur­rent­ly trans­ports such treat­ments over longer dis­tances using con­ven­tion­al air­craft. The tri­al will help deter­mine whether elec­tric air­craft can pro­vide an alter­na­tive for select­ed routes and poten­tial­ly extend deliv­ery ser­vices to addi­tion­al com­mu­ni­ties.

Under the eIPP, BETA and Alpine Air will col­lect oper­a­tional data cov­er­ing flight times, dis­patch reli­a­bil­i­ty, turn­around and charg­ing times, weath­er con­di­tions, air­craft per­for­mance and oper­at­ing costs. The results are intend­ed to help iden­ti­fy routes and oper­at­ing envi­ron­ments where elec­tric air­craft could offer prac­ti­cal ben­e­fits.

The Utah oper­a­tions build on BETA’s work with the state to devel­op elec­tric avi­a­tion and charg­ing infra­struc­ture. In Jan­u­ary 2025, the com­pa­ny and 47G announced a part­ner­ship aimed at sup­port­ing an advanced air mobil­i­ty net­work in Utah ahead of the 2034 Win­ter Olympics.

The lat­est flights also form part of BETA’s wider par­tic­i­pa­tion in the nation­al eIPP pro­gramme. The com­pa­ny is involved in sev­en of the eight select­ed pro­grammes and has con­duct­ed oper­a­tional mis­sions in states includ­ing Vir­ginia, Mary­land, Louisiana, Texas and North Car­oli­na.

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

See Full Bio