GE Aerospace has announced that it will enter a partnership with aviation startup Beta Technologies, a bit of a David-and-Goliath pairing. GE is one of the industry’s biggest names; its engines fly planes all over the world. Beta, meanwhile, focuses on emerging technologies. Together, they hope to bring the industry into new frontiers. Those new frontiers very much include densely packed cities. In other words, GE is putting $300 million into Beta in the hopes of bringing flying cars closer to reality. Those are some pretty expensive hopes.
According to a joint statement, GE Aerospace and Beta Technologies hope to “develop a hybrid electric turbogenerator for Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) applications, including long-range Vertical Takeoff and Landing (VTOL) aircraft.” Translation: they are hoping to create next-gen engines that can power a new category of aircraft, somewhere between a helicopter and a plane. These things can lift off vertically, like the former, before flying with wings like the latter. There are a couple of possible uses here, but the biggest idea is for city-based air taxis and air deliveries. Why sit in traffic when you can just fly?
Sounds like a great idea! As usual, doing it is the hard part.
Getting a flying car off the ground
There was a ton of investment in Advanced Air Mobility in 2021, but it’s been slow going since then. Startups have been burning through cash as they develop their prototypes, which has been taking longer than originally expected. Making brand-new stuff is hard, actually.
In the meantime, the U.S. government is trying to figure out what to do with this incoming technology. Flight is tightly regulated, and a new type of craft is hard to fit into decades-old rules. To that point, in 2022, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) recategorized them as a different class of vehicle. That’s probably a good thing, since they’ll be used in different ways than we’re used to from helicopters and planes. But that change led to further delays in development.
If they do start getting in the air, we can all finally avoid traffic, right? Well, no: there’s still air traffic, which is dangerous and must always be monitored to prevent collisions. As it stands, air traffic control in the U.S. is overworked, and so understaffed the FAA wants to hire immigrants as air traffic controllers. And the controllers it has are using aging equipment like Windows 95 and floppy disks. If AAM-type planes (helos?) start hitting crowded cities at scale, that’s going to put a lot more burden on air traffic control, which is wobbling as it is.
The FAA is working on what to do: “Initial operations will be much like helicopter service today. As operations increase, we could have corridors for these vehicles as well as rules for communicating with air traffic control when necessary.” I can’t wait for the first in-corridor crash.
The upsides of advancing flight tech
The vehicles, though, have a lot of potential. According to Beta, its all-electric design will have 84% fewer emissions than a Bell 407 helicopter, a fantastic step toward greening the aviation industry. It will also be less than a tenth the cost to fly, and can even charge up in under and hour. (Beta is working on a conventional takeoff and landing version as well.)
If this startup can figure out how to do this, there are huge economic rewards to be reaped. Enter GE with its $300-million investment, for which it gets to designate a director on Beta’s board. GE also seems to think that blending its own old-school turbofans with Beta’s electric wizardry will create hybrid engines that can be used for more conventional flights at much greater efficiency. If it’s right, it changes the business of flying forever.
GE had better hope it’s right, then. Because if it isn’t, that’s a whole lot of dollar bills it just threw away. Still, even if all that comes from the deal are hybrid jet engines with better fuel efficiency, it’s a win for the planet.
