Mar 232021
This is an interesting looking aircraft, an electric VTOL “air taxi.” it looks like it sprang from the mind of Burt Rutan. No so sure about those vertical lift rotors, though. The range of the Beta Technologies “Alia-250” is to be 250 nautical miles, at which point it needs to recharge. Not sure how long *that* would take; if cars are anything to judge by, it could easily be a number of hours. I wonder how well the aircraft would perform if the batteries were replaced with a small turboshaft engine driving a generator. I also wonder how well it would perform if you removed all the pilot and passenger accommodations, made it autonomous, and loaded it with anti-tank missiles.