Archer unveils production aircraft Midnight

Archer Aviation Inc. (Santa Clara, Calif., U.S.) publicly unveiled its production electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, Midnight, during its open house event in Palo Alto, Calif., on Nov. 16. Midnight is the evolution of Archer’s demonstrator eVTOL aircraft, Maker, which has validated its proprietary 12-tilt-six configuration and key enabling technologies. And like Maker, Midnight is expected to incorporate composites in some way.

Midnight is designed to be safe, sustainable, quiet and, with its expected payload of more than 1,000 pounds, can carry four passengers plus a pilot. Archer says the aircraft is optimized for back-to-back short distance trips of around 20 miles, with a charging time of approximately 10 minutes in between. Archer is working to certify Midnight with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in late 2024 and will then use it as part of its urban air mobility (UAM) network, which it plans to launch in 2025.

“From day one Archer’s strategy has always been about finding the most efficient path to commercializing eVTOL aircraft,” Adam Goldstein, Archer’s founder and CEO, says. “We believe our strategy and team’s ability to execute on it has allowed us to establish our leadership position in the market, and is why we are confident we will be the first company to certify an eVTOL aircraft in the U.S. with the FAA.”

Archer’s approach to designing Midnight focuses on combining high function and high emotion, inspiring passengers to want to experience it, similar to the feeling that was evoked in this country during the Golden Age of aviation in the 1950s. Midnight is said to marry cutting-edge electric propulsion technology with state-of-the-art aircraft systems to deliver key attributes:

• Safety. Midnight has no single critical points of failure, the company contends, meaning that should any single component fail, the aircraft can still safely complete its flight. In addition, the electric motors used have significantly less moving parts than those found in a gas turbine or piston engine, enabling it to operate with less maintenance and lower overall risk.
• Low noise. Designed to cruise at approximately 2,000 feet, the design of Midnight is such that the noise that reaches the ground is expected to measure around 45 A-weighted decibels (dBA), almost 1,000 times quieter than that of a helicopter. During forward flight, the aircraft’s tilt propellers spin on axes that are aligned with the oncoming air flow, rather than edge-wise to the flow, as is the case with traditional helicopters, further decreasing noise levels. Since Archer’s aircraft is spinning 12 small propellers rather than one large rotor, it can also spin them at lower tip speeds.
• Sustainable. Midnight is all electric, resulting in zero operating emissions. Archer is committed to sourcing renewable energy wherever possible to power its aircraft. Archer’s design and engineering teams have worked to integrate materials into the aircraft that have their own sustainability stories. For example, Midnight’s seats are constructed out of “flax” fiber. In addition, Archer’s design uses fabric made from recycled contents like plastic bottles.

“We continue the push towards commercialization, with the vast majority of our resources focused on completing the development and certification of Midnight, building out our manufacturing and supply chain capabilities and hardening our go-to-market plans,” Mark Mesler, Archer’s CFO, adds.

In August 2022, Archer completed Midnight’s preliminary design review covering all aspects of the aircraft’s specifications and manufacturing requirements, which enabled it to determine that the design is feasible for Type Certification and commercialization.

Archer has also made rapid progress on Maker’s flight testing program and is on schedule to complete a full transition flight in the coming weeks, just 12 months after its first hover flight. Achieving this milestone will further validate the flight physics of Archer’s proprietary 12-tilt-six configuration that it uses on both Maker and Midnight, as well as a number of the key enabling technologies, such as the aircraft flight control system.