US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy Flies in eVTOL Aircraft For First Time after Visit to BETA Technologies

Sean P. Duffy became the first Trans­porta­tion Sec­re­tary in US his­to­ry to fly in an eVTOL air­craft, when he vis­it­ed BETA Tech­nolo­gies’ head­quar­ters in Ver­mont on Fri­day (May 29th).

To ensure Amer­i­can inno­va­tion leads the way, Sec­re­tary Duffy and the Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion (FAA) unveiled a new pilot pro­gram (eIPP) to begin test­ing advanced air mobil­i­ty vehi­cles and their real-world appli­ca­tions out in the field. The eight select­ed projects span 26 states and part­ner with lead­ing air­craft man­u­fac­tur­ers, oper­a­tors, and state part­ners. It includes:

• Urban air taxi ser­vices
• Region­al pas­sen­ger trans­porta­tion (includ­ing short Take­off and Land­ing air­craft)
• Car­go and logis­tics net­works
• Emer­gency med­ical response oper­a­tions
• Autonomous flight tech­nolo­gies
• Off­shore and ener­gy-sec­tor trans­porta­tion

Sec­re­tary Duffy said: “This is the kind of inno­va­tion I love to see: tech­nol­o­gy that’s going to fun­da­men­tal­ly improve how peo­ple and prod­ucts move. BETA Tech­nolo­gies is one of many great Amer­i­can com­pa­nies mak­ing sure the Unit­ed States’ leads the way in this excit­ing tech­nol­o­gy.

“From emer­gency organ trans­plants to region­al air trav­el, these next gen­er­a­tion air­craft have so many rev­o­lu­tion­ary appli­ca­tions. The future of flight is com­ing. The Trump Admin­is­tra­tion will con­tin­ue to do our part to sup­port the safe inte­gra­tion of these inno­va­tions into our air­space.”

The eIPP, which was out­lined in Pres­i­dent Trump’s Unleash­ing Drone Dom­i­nance Exec­u­tive Order, is accel­er­at­ing the safe inte­gra­tion of next gen­er­a­tion Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty air­craft into the nation­al air­space and ensur­ing the Unit­ed States leads the way in avi­a­tion inno­va­tion.

Togeth­er, these pilot projects will cre­ate one of the largest real-world test­ing envi­ron­ments for next gen­er­a­tion air­craft in the world.

In addi­tion to offer­ing the Amer­i­can peo­ple an excit­ing win­dow into the future of avi­a­tion, data from the pilot projects will be used by the FAA to devel­op new reg­u­la­tions that safe­ly enable this futur­is­tic tech­nol­o­gy at scale.

In Decem­ber, Sec­re­tary Duffy and the FAA launched the nation’s first-ever advanced air mobil­i­ty (AAM) strat­e­gy to unlock the future of flight. The Strat­e­gy and accom­pa­ny­ing action plan out­line 40 rec­om­men­da­tions to safe­ly and effi­cient­ly sup­port AAM oper­a­tions.