Kyle Clark
Analyst · Kristine Liwag with Morgan Stanley
Thanks, Devon, and good morning, everyone. On our last call, we covered the growth of our commercial backlog, eIPP selections and most importantly, continued certification progress. Today, we get to show you how our consistent focus has enabled us to execute on our plan. We'll go deeper on our key announcements from Farnborough, the MV250, our hybrid flight demonstrations and expanding partnerships with GE Aerospace. Our charging partnership with Archer and Macquarie and the order from Loganair. We'll also cover the launch of the eIPP operations, our flights in Japan and Hawaii, Secretary Duffy and the FAA Deputy Administrator, Rocheleau, coming to Vermont and our regular KPI update. These developments are connected. They come from the same plan, certify and produce aircraft designed around simplicity, develop the core propulsion technologies, aircraft systems and components in-house and carry those technologies across commercial and defense applications. The work we complete on 1 program strengthens every other program, and the progress this quarter shows that strategy is working. The majority of our team is focused on certification. We have successfully worked through key policy interpretation issues with the FAA to enable solid progress in the certification of our H500A motor. On CX300, we reached a significant milestone that gives us a complete and agreed-upon foundation for the next phase of the certification program. Each of these milestones flow into certification of the A250 vertical takeoff and landing aircraft and continue to mature BETA's relationship with the FAA. In parallel, our manufacturing teams are developing the systems and procedures critical to achieving production certification immediately following the type certification of our motor and our aircraft. At the same time, focus teams are expanding our charging component and defense businesses, all of which build on and contribute back to the same technological base. Switching gears to Farnborough, starting with a new order. Earlier this year, we flew across Scotland with Loganair and the Royal Mail, connecting Glasgow, Dundee, Aberdeen, Inverness, Wick and Kirkwall, covering postal routes to some of the most remote communities in the U.K. Loganair watched their aircraft closely through those missions and placed an order at Farnborough. This aircraft is positioned perfectly to provide low-cost, zero-emission access to the Islands and Highlands of Scotland and across the U.K., cargo today, passengers in the future. Luke and the team at Loganair are world-class operators, and we're proud to see their tartan on our aircraft. Next, we unveiled the MV250. The MV250 is the military variant of the civilian VTOL aircraft, combining hybrid propulsion and autonomous capabilities for contested logistics. Beyond its breakthrough capabilities, the important point is how we are building it. It is developed in the same core technologies already flying in our CTOL and VTOL aircraft, including batteries, motors and flight control computers. This lets us move faster and at a lower cost compared to a clean sheet defense program. Our hybrid turbo generator developed in partnership with GE Aerospace gives MV250 the range and onboard power required for the mission while proving its safety and reliability for future use in civilian applications. Our defense work is a powerful catalyst for cutting-edge technologies with applicability across our family of aircraft. This focus and portability has been a core part of our strategy since the early days here at BETA. The MV250 carries a 2,000-pound payload over a 250 nautical mile tactical range. It cruises at speeds above 170 knots, which is faster than any existing military rotorcraft and has a projected repositioning range of over 1,300 nautical miles. It can self-deploy and operate from ships, austere locations and forward positions that fixed-wing aircraft just can't reach. When it lands at a forward operating base, the turbo generator keeps running to supply operational energy directly to the troops to recharge batteries, communications and electronic warfare systems. It is a logistics platform and a power source in the same airframe. The MV250 is built on an open modular architecture that can integrate with a range of autonomous mission systems. That flexibility is important to military customers because it allows the aircraft to adapt as missions, operational requirements and autonomy technologies evolve. For military operations, we have integrated the Sikorsky MATRIX, a proven capability suite built for multi-mission applications. Alongside our commercial and defense developments, we hit a significant milestone with GE Aerospace, flying the Electrified Powertrain Flight Demonstration Aircraft, or EPFD for short. Our partnership with GE Aerospace continues to expand. At Farnborough, we flew and jointly announced the successful test flights of the hybrid aircraft. BETA served as the integration partner on the EPFD, working alongside GE to successfully demonstrate the feasibility of hybrid propulsion on regional scale passenger aircraft. BETA pilots flew the hybrid aircraft from our test facility in Plattsburgh, New York to Farnborough, England and set a new altitude record for hybrid aircraft over 30,000 feet. Flying at that altitude demonstrates the ability to operate where commercial flights do today. Hybrid electric propulsion has been part of our road map from the beginning. Our partnership with GE Aerospace accelerated that development on 2 fronts. First, it advanced our joint work on the hybrid turbo generator. And second, it opened up the door to integrate hybrid technology directly into regional passenger scale aircraft. These economics open up regional and commuter routes that previously were not financially practical. EPFD proves that this path is viable, and it provides a wealth of data that flows into our continued partnership with GE. This milestone required regulatory approval from the FAA, regulators in Canada, Greenland, Iceland and U.K. Civil Aviation Authority. BETA and GE's shared commitment to safety and working closely with the regulators made that possible. Next, I want to give you an update on a few other defense developments before we move on. In April, we received our first special airworthiness certificate for an optionally piloted aircraft, or OPA, for N709JL, an ALIA CTOL aircraft. This aircraft has already completed its first autonomous flights, flying with both BETA's internal autonomy stack and Sikorsky's MATRIX stack. Autonomy is foundational to the MV250 program and using our CX300 aircraft as a test bed for this technology is a testament to the flexibility of our architecture and our platform. Also, during the second quarter, at the invitation of the U.S. Army, we deployed our ALIA aircraft to a live-fire Exercise Aurora 2026 in Sweden, supporting NATO's Eastern Flank Deterrence Initiative. We flew alongside conventional and military assets supporting logistics operations in a complex environment. We completed the deployment flying 30 sorties and using only about $300 of electricity. Beyond an excellent demonstration of our aircraft, the operational data we brought back is directly informing our development of the MV250. On our work with General Dynamics, we have moved into Phase 2 on our internal classified programs and entered Phase 1 of a new and separate program providing critical hardware solutions. And those are just the 2 that I can mention. Undersea applications have become a meaningful and growing area for BETA, and our work continues to expand the aperture of where this platform can operate. Beyond classified work, our component sales business continues to grow. Shortly after the end of the quarter, we announced the sale of flight control computers and software licensing to Horizon for their X7 aircraft. This technology has historically come from a short list of legacy aerospace suppliers. We developed ours in-house to the same standard designed for power-lift aircraft. Horizon chose our flight control computers because they met the high bar that aircraft certification demands. This is the third major aircraft program flying on our flight control computers. We have talked on prior calls about what motor sales to Eve and hardware sales to General Dynamics meant to our component sales business. Flight control computers extend that further. We are now selling motors, batteries and flight control computers. Other OEMs are looking to BETA to provide the same high reliability, flight critical systems for their aircraft, and the portfolio they are choosing from continues to grow. Every time we add a component to that list, our customer base expands and our technology gets proven across more platforms. At their core, these are enabling technologies built from the first principles of our own aircraft and valuable to the industry precisely because of that. We built the technology that now others have adopted. Before we get into KPIs, I want to cover our work with the Department of Transportation and FAA on the launch of eIPP operations. On June 1, Secretary Duffy came to BETA. He flew 3 sorties in our CTOL, in our VTOL and alongside our hybrid aircraft. He is the first U.S. Secretary of Transportation in history to fly an electric aircraft. The administration came to Vermont, got in our aircraft and went flying with us. This is the product of years of building trust and working alongside the people and agencies building this regulatory environment. On July 12, United Therapeutics became the first to launch operations under the eIPP, flying 2 of our aircraft in Maryland and Virginia to transport an organ. We were the first company in the program to reach that milestone. BETA launched in 2017 with United Therapeutics as our first customer. What started as an R&D contract grew into an aircraft order, a charging order and a relationship that helped shape our family of aircraft. Martine Rothblatt, United Therapeutics Founder and CEO, was the first person outside of BETA to fly ALIA as a crew member. 9 years later, our first customer is our first eIPP operator. Across 26 states, operators like Metro Aviation, Bristow and Republic Airways will fly our aircraft ahead of type certification. Together, we are building operating plans and demonstrating real-world use cases that will inform FAA rulemaking. This represents more than a 1-year pull forward on commercialization for the BETA aircraft, and it's happening now. Our readiness was earned through 190,000 nautical miles flown to date, a safety record built across every one of those miles, years of work with the FAA and a charging network that is already in the ground across the country. Our customers and operators have been flying this aircraft worldwide in real conditions on real missions long before the eIPP opportunity was created. When the contract was signed, the aircraft, infrastructure, operating experience and regulatory partnerships were already in place and allowed us to launch immediately. Farnborough presented another opportunity to further our relationships with global regulators. Beyond meetings with leadership from the FAA, EASA, UKCAA, GACA and ANAC, we gave each of these agencies the opportunity to watch the technologies they're working to certify, fly in the airshow every day. In addition to these aerial demonstrations, FAA pilots and delegates are flying our aircraft regularly. These flights are reinforcing our belief that design philosophy rooted in simplicity can support motors and aircraft that are well positioned for certification. We showed up in Farnborough with 3 aircraft, flew 2 of them every day during the airshow and had military customers, airline operators and global regulators watching all week. On to KPIs. Our backlog now stands at 1,001 aircraft and $3.9 billion. We have set $4 billion as our year-end target. We are essentially there now at the halfway point of the year. The Loganair order is a great example of how that backlog grows. An operator wants an aircraft that will let them fly more reliably and at a lower cost. We show up and go flying, demonstrating the realities of electric aviation to their pilots, maintainers and dispatchers, flying actual routes in real-world conditions at night in all sorts of weather. They get it and then they place the order. We have now flown over 190,000 nautical miles across our fleet. The cargo routes in Scotland with Loganair and the Royal Mail that led us to that order, organ transport missions in Virginia with United Therapeutics, cargo demonstrations in Japan with Yamato, one of the country's largest delivery networks, in fact, and an 8-week demonstration program with Hawaiian Airlines, Mokulele and Surf Air evaluating performance across inter-island routes and demonstrating our aircraft's ability to fly the missions that Hawaiians rely on. Every nautical mile adds to the safety record, the operational data and the confidence our customers and the FAA have in this aircraft. Every new country we fly in is yet another independent regulatory body that has reviewed this aircraft and cleared it to operate. Our year-end goal remains 250,000 total nautical miles, and we are on pace. We now have 138 charging sites. On our last call, we announced a 34-charger contract with the Florida Department of Transportation. We began delivering those chargers in the second quarter, which contributed to our revenue performance. Our charging business is generating revenue today against contracted orders with the opportunity to build an even larger network ahead of us. A few weeks ago, we announced America's Consortium for Electric Skyways, or ACES, with Adam at Archer and Macquarie Capital. Macquarie brings infrastructure and finance expertise, BETA supplies the hardware built on the standard that the industry has adopted and Archer accelerates the deployment by identifying strategic locations. Together, we are building up to 250 charging sites across California, Texas, Florida and New York. These sites join a network that BETA already owns and operates and that other OEMs use for their missions. The consortium accelerates the growth of our current network and with the necessary capital and continues to build the infrastructure that our industry needs. Our Max Demonstrated Rate has not changed from what we reported last quarter. That is intentional. We have been consistent about our approach. The highest value work we can do on the production floor right now is building the foundation that allows us to ramp efficiently, securing long lead materials, expanding vertical integration, staging production lines, qualifying suppliers on quality and conformity and bringing the labor we have hired up to the standard that the industry requires. We are executing on each of these tasks in parallel. When the production ramp comes, it will be into a system that's ready for it. Moving on to certification. Continued rotation is no longer a limiting factor for the H500A program, and the path forward does not require any changes to the engine. We have worked with the FAA to resolve the policy interpretation issue. The team has now developed the data sets needed, and we have made meaningful progress with the FAA on the compliance approach. We are continuing to close the remaining elements methodically, and we will measure the completion when the FAA accepts our work. We also completed additional tests for credit, teardowns and inspections of the engines that were used in durability and in lightning tests with the FAA actively participating. The teardowns were uneventful and show the robustness of our engines under these extreme test conditions. These are among the most demanding test activities in the program, and the results reinforce our confidence in the design and the data supporting certification. On software, last quarter, we were targeting completion of requirements-based testing across all 2,100 engine software requirements. We have substantially completed that test effort and the formal runs of these tests for the FAA are all underway. When we started this program, we were building not only an engine, but also a regulatory framework in close partnership with the FAA. The rules for certifying electric motors did not exist. We have been at the table as those rules were written, which means every issue we resolve becomes a standard the next company has to meet. We have done and are continuing to do the work. Shifting to our CTOL aircraft. We have closed the requirements definition phase of the CX300 program. The last open issue paper was signed off by the FAA, and we received 100% acceptance of our Detailed Design Standards collector. My understanding is that this is the very first in the AAM industry. This is an important product of our stepwise approach to certification. We resolve requirements early, complete the engine and aircraft work in sequence and carry the accepted methods forward wherever the architecture is common. That reduces ambiguity and lets our teams focus on producing evidence required for compliance. With requirements definition complete, we can finalize the compliance plans for each requirement. Certification test activities for multiple systems are already running in parallel, along with our preparations to enter TIA flight testing. As always, we report certification progress when it has been accepted by the FAA. Because the CX300 and the A250 share substantial commonality, much of the CX300 DDS work carries directly into the A250 program. The CX300 establishes a foundation that the A250 is built on, common aircraft architecture, flight controls, production tooling and processes, test methods and regulatory groundwork. Each requirement we agree with the FAA on, each compliance method we validate and each production process we establish reduces the work and risk on the A250 program. Our propulsion certification strategy follows the same approach. The H500A will power the CX300. The A250 will use the H500B, an amended type certificate variant that builds on the H500A. The standards, test procedures, compliance methods and production foundation established for the H500A program carry into the H500B, allowing the next engine to advance from a proven certification basis. The same compounding effects happens in flight. Every hour we log generates data on the aircraft, its system and its operations in real-world conditions. We bring that data, validation and regulatory expertise into every certification program across the platform. The more we fly and the further each program advances, the stronger the foundation becomes for the aircraft that follow. On July 12, we launched eIPP operations. On July 20, we unveiled the MV250. The Loganair order brought our aircraft backlog 1 step away from the year-end target of $4 billion. The charging network we have built is becoming the infrastructure other OEMs are building their operations around. Each milestone reflects our core development philosophy. Every program at BETA converges back to the mainline of technology to support the development, certification and commercialization of our aircraft motors and components. The certification requirements, compliance methods and production processes established on the CX300 carry forward into the A250. The work completed across the A250 platform gave the MV250 a flight-proven foundation to move rapidly in addressing our nation's defense needs. That is the stepwise approach that has guided us from day 1. Every program advances the common platform and the common platform allows every aircraft, engine and component that follows to move faster. This is our product development strategy. Before turning it to Herman, we recently announced plans to expand our financing with the Import-Export Bank of the United States. Chairman John Jovanovic and the bank's team has shown exceptional leadership on strengthening U.S. aerospace manufacturing. Herman, over to you.