FAA Grants BETA Technologies LOA “to Start Dual-Seat Training of Pilots in A250 eVTOL Aircraft”

The Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion has grant­ed BETA Tech­nolo­gies a Let­ter of Autho­ri­sa­tion (LOA) to begin dual-seat train­ing of pilots for its A250 eVTOL air­craft, reports a press release.

With this LOA, BETA’s cur­rent group of eight pow­ered-lift test pilots are now autho­rised to pro­vide A250 crew train­ing to more than just man­u­fac­tur­er and FAA per­son­nel, after the Admin­is­tra­tion con­duct­ed an exten­sive review of the ground, sim­u­la­tion and flight train­ing pro­ce­dures the com­pa­ny uses to train per­son­nel.

BETA has built a strong track record of devel­op­ment and safe­ty dur­ing its more than four years of fly­ing and train­ing. This LOA comes on the heels of the com­pa­ny becom­ing one of the only devel­op­ers to car­ry out suc­cess­ful eVTOL crewed tran­si­tions with mul­ti­ple pilots.

BETA Tech­nolo­gies Sim­u­la­tor

The com­pa­ny has led pilots from the FAA, USAF, U.S Army, UPS, Unit­ed Ther­a­peu­tics, and Bris­tow through ground school aca­d­e­mics, sim­u­la­tor rehearsal and ulti­mate­ly suc­cess­ful qual­i­ta­tive eval­u­a­tion flights in its CTOL air­craft.

This new LOA marks a key step toward cer­ti­fi­ca­tion as it enables BETA’s flight test group to pre­pare for cred­it flight test­ing and train the FAA avi­a­tion safe­ty inspec­tor and oth­er Admin­is­tra­tion per­son­nel who will ulti­mate­ly help cer­ti­fy the air­craft. 

This will also allow the com­pa­ny to refine and val­i­date the safe­ty and effi­ca­cy of its eVTOL train­ing pro­gram. BETA is work­ing on a stand­alone sim­u­la­tor prod­uct that aims to meet FAA require­ments for a qual­i­fied train­ing sys­tem.

For more infor­ma­tion

(Top image: BETA Tech­nolo­gies)

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