Regent’s challenging path to a seaglider first flight

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When seaglider developer Regent launched sea trials with its first full-scale prototype in March 2025, the company expected the electric flying boat to progress through hydrofoiling and into flight tests by sometime that summer. As often happens with startups that are developing new vehicles, this schedule slipped. Then, last October, the craft’s left pontoon struck the water while hydrofoiling, breaking the wing and putting the test program on hold while the company worked to understand the cause of the accident.

Ten and a half months later, the repaired and upgraded prototype finally made it into the air near Regent’s headquarters on Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island. On Sept. 2, with two experienced test pilots at the controls, it flew for 30 seconds at a height of 33 feet above the water — the target altitude for this wing-in-ground-effect craft. The deliberately short flight was a technical milestone for the company, generating data that allowed it to proceed with a second, minute-long flight just one week later. It was also a symbolic one, embodying the countless hours of modeling and testing that convinced Regent’s engineers the craft was safe for human flight.

Related: How Regent’s seaglider is melding maritime and aviation tech

“We are very conscious of all of the feedback we get on social media and from investors and friends and family and everyone, like, ‘When’s it going to fly? When’s it going to fly?’” Regent CEO Billy Thalheimer told The Air Current during a series of interviews before and after the inaugural flight. “And I think one of the hard things as a company and a startup is sort of pushing back against that. We’re going to fly when we’re ready and when we know it’s safe.”

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