“Bristow Flies BETA ALIA Aircraft in Norway”

Bris­tow Nor­way AS, a sub­sidiary of Bris­tow Group, recent­ly announced it has flown BETA’s all-elec­tric ALIA CX300 air­craft at Sta­vanger Air­port, mark­ing the first oper­a­tions of Nor­way’s Test Are­na (NTA) for Zero & Low Emis­sion Avi­a­tion, reports a press release. 

The ongo­ing flights, which are being con­duct­ed in coop­er­a­tion with Avi­nor and the Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty of Nor­way (CAA Nor­way), mark a step toward inte­grat­ing and scal­ing Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty (AAM) in the coun­try and the sur­round­ing regions.

The release explains, “The NTA will con­sist of a series of eval­u­a­tion flights over the next sev­er­al months, to test like­ly cus­tomer routes at Avi­nor-owned air­ports through­out Nor­way. Ear­ly routes will see ALIA fly between Sta­vanger and Bergen air­ports, with poten­tial for the pro­gram to expand to addi­tion­al routes across Nor­way lat­er this year. The air­craft will be flown by BETA-trained Bris­tow pilots.”

The flight was con­duct­ed by Bris­tow pilot, Jere­my Degagne, and BETA pilot, Nate Dubie. A BETA-trained Bris­tow crew will fly and main­tain the ALIA through­out the six-month reg­u­la­to­ry sand­box eval­u­a­tion project help­ing pave the way for future deliv­ery and inte­gra­tion of this tech­nol­o­gy into the region.

The wel­com­ing cer­e­mo­ny after the ALIA CX300 is Deliv­ered to Sta­van­gar Air­port

Dave Stepanek, Bris­tow’s Exec­u­tive VP, Chief Trans­for­ma­tion Offi­cer, com­ment­ed, “We are proud to be a part of this cut­ting-edge pro­gram and our par­tic­i­pa­tion in this pro­gram direct­ly aligns with our philo­soph­i­cal ‘crawl, walk, run’ approach to devel­op­ing Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty for com­mer­cial oper­a­tions.”

He con­tin­ued, “The infor­ma­tion we learn through the tri­als will pro­vide valu­able oper­a­tional insights that could help oper­a­tors, man­u­fac­tur­ers and reg­u­la­tors bet­ter under­stand how best to move for­ward towards com­mer­cial oper­a­tions.”

Nor­way has already estab­lished itself as a leader in inno­v­a­tive clean mobil­i­ty, with elec­tric cars com­pris­ing 89 per­cent of new car reg­is­tra­tions in 2024. This NTA is an eval­u­a­tion of the ben­e­fits of AAM for the region and its res­i­dents — as well as an inves­ti­ga­tion into the require­ments to build out an ecosys­tem for inte­grat­ed oper­a­tions. The ALIA is well-suit­ed for Nor­way’s dis­trib­uted geog­ra­phy and cold-weath­er con­di­tions.

Min­is­ter of Trans­port Jon-Ivar Nygård, remarked, “As a nation whol­ly depen­dent on avi­a­tion, tran­si­tion­ing to a more sus­tain­able avi­a­tion indus­try is a major pri­or­i­ty for my gov­ern­ment.”

While Andreas Bjel­land Erik­sen, Min­is­ter of Cli­mate and Envi­ron­ment, point­ed out,“If we are to suc­ceed with the green tran­si­tion, we must test, learn and build and not just plan. With this test are­na pro­gram,  Nor­way is tak­ing a lead­ing role in the devel­op­ment of zero-emis­sion avi­a­tion, while also cre­at­ing new oppor­tu­ni­ties for green jobs and inno­va­tion.”

The release con­cludes, “A team of BETA pilots and main­tain­ers have deliv­ered this air­craft, N214BT, to the Test Are­na fol­low­ing a weeks-long jour­ney across the EU. The flights, which orig­i­nat­ed in Shan­non, Ire­land, have tak­en BETA’s air­craft over the Irish Sea, through the UK, over the Eng­lish Chan­nel, and to the Paris Air Show — where ALIA flew every day — fol­lowed by Ger­many, Lux­em­bourg, Den­mark, and, ulti­mate­ly, Nor­way.”

For more infor­ma­tion

https://beta.team

https://www.bristowgroup.com

(Images: BETA Tech­nolo­gies)

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