For the most part, electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft manufacturers try to keep flight testing under wraps. But this week one firm opened its doors to representatives from 22 U.S. federal departments and agencies.
Archer Aviation on Monday hosted the inaugural visit of the freshly formed federal Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) Interagency Working Group at its flight testing facility in Salinas, California. About 20 company executives met with over 70 representatives from the Department of Transportation, White House, FAA, NASA, Federal Communications Commission, Department of Defense, National Telecommunications and Information Administration, and others.
The visitors witnessed a live flight test of Midnight, Archer’s flagship, four-seat eVTOL air taxi. They also learned more about the company’s approach to design, safety, and certification as it progresses toward launching air taxi routes in Chicago and the New York-New Jersey metro area by 2025.
“It was inspiring to see the level of support from across the federal government focused on ensuring the safe entry of eVTOL aircraft into the U.S. market in 2025,” said Adam Goldstein, founder and CEO of Archer. “For many of our guests, this was the first time they’ve been able to witness an eVTOL aircraft flight in person. Our showcase emphasized just how far along we are and demonstrated the safety and low noise advantages of eVTOL aircraft.”
The AAM Interagency Working Group was spurred into creation after the Biden administration’s passage of the AAM Coordination and Leadership Act in October. In February, the DOT began implementing the bill’s call to establish an interagency working group. By March, it had rallied its members for an inaugural meeting to plot out the group’s 2023 objectives.
The group’s goal? Deliver a national strategy for safe AAM integration in 2024 while maintaining global U.S. leadership of the industry. That blueprint will ultimately buoy the FAA’s stated goal of launching early AAM services—including Archer’s air taxi routes—in 2025.
The planned routes will be flown by Midnight, with a range of 100 miles and an expected payload of around 1,000 pounds. The company’s goal is to replace 60- to 90-minute commutes to airports by car with 10- to 20-minute air taxi jaunts. The aircraft is designed to make back-to-back flights, with minimal charge time between trips.
Midnight, first unveiled in November, is the evolution of Maker, Archer’s preproduction demonstrator that spent two years in a flight test program.
Now, as Archer promised in May, its flagship aircraft has begun a summer of flight testing, fresh off of a demonstration at the Paris Air Show and the appointment of former FAA administrator Billy Nolen as chief safety officer.
The news of initial Midnight flight testing also closely follows an escalation in Archer’s production partnership with Stellantis. The collaboration in June moved from the “concept phase” to the “execution phase”—that is to say construction has begun on Archer’s high-volume eVTOL manufacturing facility in Covington, Georgia. Archer claims it will be the largest facility of its kind in the world.
The company is progressing deliberately through Midnight’s bid for type certification, of which Monday’s demonstrations should play a key part. In 2021, the FAA signed off on Archer’s G-1 application, providing the certification basis for its aircraft. In December, the FAA issued airworthiness criteria for Midnight, a few months after rival Joby Aviation received the same nod for its own air taxi.
While Archer works with the FAA to finalize a means of compliance for type design validation, Midnight has already completed wind tunnel testing and launched flight testing. Joby, meanwhile, received the FAA blessing to flight test its own production model aircraft last week.
Archer and Joby are often viewed as being in a two-horse race for air taxi dominance in the U.S. Per SMG Consulting’s AAM Reality Index, Joby (first) and Archer (third) sandwich Germany’s Volocopter as the three firms most primed for mass production of a certified air taxi.
Also near the top is Boeing-owned Wisk Aero (fourth), with which Archer engaged in a multiyear trade secret battle from 2021 to 2022. Rounding out the top five is Lilium, which earned its G-1 from the FAA last month. The German manufacturer is now the only air taxi firm with certification bases from both the FAA and European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA).
Investors have been bullish on Archer stock (NYSE: ACHR) recently, with shares up nearly 25 percent this week as of Wednesday. Analysts on average rate it as a “strong buy.”
But any services that Archer and its U.S. air taxi rivals want to launch by 2025 are ultimately at the mercy of the FAA, which was heavily criticized in a recent DOT audit for its slow pace of certification. The yearlong investigation found that internal agency strife “hindered the FAA’s progress” on AAM regulations and certification.
The FAA pushed back on some of the DOT’s grievances, such as the claim that conflict slowed regulatory efforts. However, the agency did agree to implement four recommendations aimed at quickening the pace—and keeping air taxis such as Midnight on track for a 2025 launch.
