LISA HOBBS – News Editor
A first in Warren County Memorial Airport history occurred today. An all-electric airplane landed for recharging at 12:08 p.m. on runway five.
“It’s fully electric; this is our conventional takeoff and landing model,” stated Colin LaFromboise, of BETA Technologies, which develops FFA-certified electric aircraft. “It is more like a normal airplane, but it is a derivative our of main business purpose which is to make a eVTOL (electric vertical takeoff and landing), so that we can take off vertically like a helicopter but switch to flying like an airplane.”
The one that landed locally was a passenger/cargo plane that took off from Nashville and stopped for recharging before continuing onto Chattanooga, which is as far as the plane can travel on one charge. Piloting the craft was Jordan Potvin.
LaFromboise’s role was to be on standby with a portable charger in a box truck, because Warren County Memorial Airport does not yet have that capability.
“The thing that really makes it worth it is that a full charge will cost you $20, so it’s about 10 times less than something that runs on fuel. It takes about an hour for a full charge. This one should be type certified by the FAA within the next year. Two days ago, we received a special air-worthiness certificate for our vertical takeoff model. So, we can start taking passengers up in it and start taking test flights.”
LaFromboise says this stop was one of many, because the aircraft is participating in demonstration flights.
“We are going to Florence, South Carolina. It’s called the eVTOL integration pilot program, which is something created by the U.S. government where they put out contracts for electric aviation companies and BETA scored all of them but one. They allow us to do test flights and demonstrations to prove the feasibility of the aircraft. So, we completed those test flights out in Salt Lake City, and we are transporting the aircraft to Florence where there will be another one happening on Oct. 29.”
He added, “Everywhere we stop people are really excited about the idea of an electric aircraft. It’s relatively new. I think our business is at the forefront of what we can do because we design and build everything in house. We build our own motors that are working towards type certification for the FAA for electric motors. We build our own charging infrastructure. We have the fastest chargers available for electric airplanes. The nice thing is we don’t gate keep that. We really want the aviation industry to advance as a whole. So, we do sell our motors, and we sell our chargers to all the other companies.”
BETA Technologies was privately owned, until Nov. 4, 2025, pricing its IPO at $34 per share, raising about $1.02 billion. The company, founded in 2017 by Kyle Clark, is valued at roughly $7.4 billion.
LaFromboise stated that the cost to purchase a BETA Technologies aircraft ranges between $3 million and $4 million and that there is a backlog of approximately $4 billion with people who have already put in their request to purchase one.