Archer Aviation (Santa Clara, Calif., U.S.) has announced the completion of 402 test flights so far this year, surpassing the 400 test flight goal it set for 2024 approximately 4 months ahead of schedule. The flights have been conducted over the last 8 months as the company ramps operations in advance of for-credit flight testing with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

Adam Goldstein, CEO and founder of Archer, admits that while Archer’s flight goals were viewed as aggressive, the “Archer flight test team and supporting groups made it happen.”

Each flight produces critical data that Archer’s teams use to evaluate and refine aircraft loads, vibrations, performance and handling qualities. Most recently, the Archer flight test team has focused on five key testing areas:

• Transition flights: Continuing to conduct longer distance and higher speed transition flights to gather data, extend endurance and ensure maximum safety.
• High-rate operations: Increasing per-day flights to simulate the high cadence of Archer’s anticipated commercial operations and test Midnight’s durability.
• Advancing landing profiles: Completing a series of hover landings in various wind conditions with different rates of descent and flare heights to expand Midnight’s wind envelope and further optimize its landing profile.
• Enhancing acoustic measurement: Conducting a series of hover operations with various microphone arrays to collect supplemental data for the FAA and to further evaluate and tune Midnight’s noise signature.
• Optimizing control laws: Regressing through the envelope with a series of optimizations made to the control laws which will extend the aircraft’s endurance.

This announcement follows Archer’s planned network in Los Angeles and its recently announced developments with Southwest Airlines and United Airlines. It also follows major milestones, such as certification to begin operating as a commercial airline and the recent delivery of Archer’s first aircraft to the U.S. Air Force.