Beta CEO Kyle Clark piloted The Beta CX300 from Ireland to France for the 2025 Paris Air Show. A self-imposed demand, Clark insists on flying the aircraft or having it flown to air shows at which the aircraft is to be displayed – proof of the pudding. “We arrived at Paris Le Bourget Airport for the 2025 Paris Air Show, joining one of the most iconic aviation events in the world. ALIA took to the skies each day, flying presentation flights in front of more than 600,000 attendees while our team showcased our business and technology at The Gallery, our spot on the static display area.”
Clark explains the detailed engineering in the Beta CX300 CTOL (Conventional Take Off and Landing) version in an interview with Aviation International News (AIN). We learn why Beta Aircraft are so roomy. Clark is six-foot, five-inches and 250 pounds – surprisingly only at the 88th percentile for American males according to the Centers for Disease Control. The capaciousness enables hauling 1,250 pounds of cargo, and the floor height matches that of the ground-based vehicles that will load and unload these aircraft.
Clark amply demonstrated the craft’s cross-country abilities, and his display at Paris helped expand on Alia’s ability to take off short and climb using an improbably small propeller. The motor powering this machine is part of a decisive approach.
Beta Designs and Builds Its Own Motors
The aspirational drive behind this mechanical drive can be attributed to a woman who came through a national tragedy. Manon Belzile, self-described “VP of radness,” or more fomally electric motor development at Beta, survived a harrowing experience in her college career. chancing on a massacre at Montréal’s École Polytechnique, she evaded the gunman but later found a bullet hole in the cuff of her boot and a shell lodged in a differential equations text in her backpack. Tragically, 14 were injured that day and 15wre killed, including her rock-climbing partner.
Keeping it Cool
Belzile became the 25th emplyee at Beta following her interview with Clark. (There are now over 800.) Asked about inverters, then a source of concern at Beta. she saw an opening. “Clark told Belzile that Beta needed someone who could design an inverter, which supplies motors with electrical current. Belzile explained to Clark that she’d never done that before. “He told me, ‘It’s mostly a thermal problem,'” said Belzile. “And I said, ‘Ah! I know thermal problems. I can do that.'”
An avid fixed- and rotary-wing pilot (part of Beta’s flight training for employees) and skier and outdoorswoman, Belzile drives her ambitious schedule as hard as she pursues an active lifestyle. “Belzile and her team of 28 engineers spend their days in feverish pursuit of the simplest effective configuration of magnets and copper wire, the main components of the motors commonly used in today’s electric vehicles. Once they’ve hit upon a potential winner, they subject it to a battery of tortures — scorching it, freezing it, frying it with voltage of lightning-like intensity — to determine its ruggedness. ” Because of that, the team has created a less-than 100-pound motor that produces 500 horsepower and is destined to produce more. Her Tesla’s motor weighs three times that for the same power.
Beta seems to inspire that kind of perfomance in its diverse work force.
Jump Starting the Grand Tour
Beta’s website tracks the progress of the aircraft’s Grand Tour of Europe, a chance to display the ALIA and its capabiliities across the continent. Flying magazine reports, “The five-seater—designed for a pilot and four passengers, plus luggage—was the first aircraft demonstration of the event. And Beta at the show announced its newest customer: Republic Airways.” Republic president Matt Koscal was aboard that flight.
Republic oresident Matt Koscal with Kyle Clark. Republic intends to purchase an undiscloised number of Beta aircraft.
“The strategy is very clear: Cargo and then passenger in conventional, cargo and then passenger in VTOL,” Clark said. “Then when you go to the VTOL, all you’re really doing is adding a really good flap setting, which allows you to get really slow taking off and landing.”
One can follow the tour on Beta’s website. Since the craft has been flying for several years, made trips across the U. S. and back, been the first electric aircraft to land at a major NYC airport, and is now flying around Europe, Beta’s touring machine should stir interest and demonstrate reliabilty to prospective clients. If nothing else, Beta’s adventures make a great travelogue.