Vermont Sen. Peter Welch was at BETA Technologies in South Burlington Thursday afternoon to tour its manufacturing facility and discuss proposed legislation to help emerging aviation technologies.
BETA Technologies opened its manufacturing facility in October 2023. The floor of the 188,500-square-foot facility is dominated by massive windowed doors that allow the company to move their electric-powered aircraft directly to the adjacent runway. Vermont’s junior senator, Democrat Peter Welch, took a private tour of the facility.
“I have seen the future. This is quite astonishing that we are at ground zero of the transformation of aviation in the United States and in the world. That’s literally true. Electrically powered airplanes. It’s real.”
Welch is a co-sponsor of the Aviation Innovation and Global Competitiveness Act. He says the bipartisan bill will equalize the certification process for electric and hybrid aircraft with conventional planes.
“The advanced air mobility legislation would allow us to modernize the certification process. And obviously it has to be modernized when you’re going from gas powered to electric powered aviation.”
Sponsors of the bill note that the Federal Aviation Administration has made substantial progress regarding regulations for the Advanced Air Mobility sector including pilot training and certification. The bill’s intent is to create a more efficient and timely process for aircraft certification.
BETA Technologies CEO Kyle Clark says the proposed legislation elevates all of aerospace by consistently applying regulations.
“It actually helps eVTOL (Electric Vertical Take-off and Landing) and it helps existing propulsion systems that are advancing. One great example, I mean, you know that we’re partnered with GE. GE is developing a lower fuel burn high altitude jet engine product. This type of legislation will provide a clearer and better path for certification of that type of craft as well. Of course, it helps innovative companies a lot because we have a lot of certification work going on.”
Welch interjects that the legislation emphasizes performative rather than prescriptive approaches to regulations but retains a goal of public safety.
“You have a performance orientation: Is it safe? Well, you can test that and you can retest it. In my walk around what I was seeing is that systems that are in these planes are going to have like triple redundancies. A system that was being tested over there is going to be subject to a level of heat beyond what’s required. Does it work? Is it safe when tested? That’s the approach that allows maximum innovation.”
Clark says the performative regulation in the proposed legislation is an important philosophy that fosters technological innovation.
“Prescriptive regulations tells you how to achieve a safety result. In the performance-based regulations it leaves room for innovation to achieve the same results. So the safety standards are there, and many times higher, and the performance-based regulations let the innovation solve the problem versus the regulation prescribe the solution.”
The legislation is co-sponsored in the Senate by three Democrats and six Republicans. A House version is sponsored by two Democrats and two Republicans.
