BETA Technologies tests ALIA electric aircraft complete with casualty evacuation

According to the 96th Test Wing, on 11 January BETA deployed a HH-60W helicopter from the 41st Rescue Squadron and transported a simulated casualty from Moody Air Force Base, Georgia, to Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. Marking a prominent milestone, the US Air Force (USAF) aircrew then transferred the casualty on a stretcher to the BETA aircrew, who loaded the stretcher into the ALIA electric aircraft as the HH-60W departed. The ALIA crew then flew 68NM to Duke Field, where they were met by a team of medics.

It was the first time the conventional takeoff and landing aircraft flew a simulated casualty evacuation mission and communicated directly with USAF aircraft. Completed in less than 10 minutes, the test could mark the beginning of a shift in how USAF approaches the difficult mission of casualty evacuation, when time is of the essence and aircraft are in high demand.

The ALIA aircraft also completed a simulated maintenance recovery team (MRT) mission, flying to Eglin to pick up a needed part for an F-35 that had landed at Duke Field.

BETA’s three-month stint of operational experiments guided by the rotary-wing test squadron was completed on 29 January.

Announcing the end of the ‘deployment’, BETA said ALIA’s time at Duke Field was “the next phase of a larger developmental test and evaluation (DT&E) effort being conducted by the Air Force to assess electric aviation’s applicability for DOD [US Department of Defense] missions”.

BETA noted that if USAF needed to rely on a C-130 aircraft to transport the patient, it would require both more crew and fuel. According to BETA, the MRT mission took around one hour of flight time, costing $25 in electricity, while a truck driving the same distance would take four hours and require $45 worth of gas.

Alongside the ALIA CTOL, BETA is building a vertical takeoff and landing variant and has participated in USAF’s transformative vertical lift program, Agility Prime.

Late last year, Helijet announced it would integrate the ALIA electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft into its fleet.