REGENT seaglider takes first crewed flight
REGENT (regentcraft.com) flew a full-scale electric seaglider with people on board for the first time, the company announced on September 2. The Viceroy prototype lifted off Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island, where the vessel has been in sea trials since early 2025.
Two crew members were aboard for the test. According to aviation outlet AeroTime, the seaglider covered roughly 1,956 feet at about 33 feet above the water and stayed airborne for 30 seconds. That puts the Viceroy in a category of one: no all-electric wing-in-ground-effect craft this size has previously flown with people on board.
The Viceroy is designed to carry 12 passengers at up to 180 mph on routes as long as 180 miles, using ground effect to stay aloft within a wingspan of the surface. It moves through three modes in sequence, floating on its hull at harbor speeds, rising onto hydrofoils as it accelerates, then transitioning to the wing. At 55 feet long with a 65-foot wingspan, it is the largest all-electric flying machine built to date, by the company's account. Because seagliders never leave the water's immediate surface, US law treats them as vessels: the Viceroy answers to the Coast Guard rather than the FAA, and is operated by certified mariners.
"In 2026, we will fly a full-scale, all-electric Seaglider with human crew onboard and begin producing them for customers around the world."
Billy Thalheimer, co-founder and CEO of REGENT, speaking in December 2025The company worked toward the milestone one mode at a time. It christened the prototype "Paladin" and ran its first on-water tests with humans aboard in March 2025, cleared crewed foil-mode testing that June, and spent the following year raising foiling speeds. In April 2026, REGENT flew Squire, its smaller uncrewed seaglider built for defense missions, in ground effect for the first time.
Flight comes a week after REGENT closed a $240 million Series B, split evenly between equity and debt. Mare Liberum and AE Ventures co-led, with debt capital from Erebor Bank. DCVC came in as a new investor, and Founders Fund, Caffeinated Capital, Lockheed Martin Ventures, Japan Airlines and Giant Step Capital participated. Pioneer Fund, Y Combinator and others backed the company at pre-seed.
That capital is aimed at production. REGENT finished construction on a 255,000-square-foot manufacturing plant at Rhode Island's Quonset Business Park in June and expects to begin building vessels there this year. The company reports commercial orders worth more than $10 billion from airline and ferry operators across six continents, along with contracts with the US Marine Corps.
Certification is the remaining gate. REGENT submitted its design plan for the Viceroy to the Coast Guard in March and has been working through the review with classification society Lloyd's Register before it can carry paying passengers.