Archer Aviation has now completed the final assembly of its first Midnight aircraft. With final assembly and initial testing complete, last week the aircraft was shipped from Archer's Palo Alto facility to its flight test facility in Salinas, California and reassembled. Archer will now take this aircraft through a series of ground tests leading up to its planned first flight this summer. The Midnight aircraft has recently garnered significant attention from the US Department of Defense, given its payload capabilities.

This Midnight aircraft will enable Archer to perform critical 'company testing' to accelerate and reduce risk on its certification programme with the FAA in advance of 'for credit' certification testing that the company plans to begin early next year with piloted aircraft. Its strategy is to allow Archer to fly many of the same test points that will be needed during piloted 'for credit' flight testing in order to further validate the aircraft before the FAA witnesses and participates in the testing, a customary practice in many aircraft certification programmes.

Component manufacturing is already underway for Archer's conforming Midnight aircraft, for which Archer is targeting the completion of final assembly in Q4 2023, with piloted flight test operations beginning early 2024.

“We announced our exciting progress that the final assembly of our first Midnight aircraft is now complete and it is preparing for its flight test programme,” says founder and CEO Adam Goldstein. “This aircraft will accelerate and reduce risk on our certification programme, paving the way for our team to focus on building and conducting piloted operations with conforming aircraft to support the goal of entering into service in 2025.”

The Archer team, alongside its key strategic partners Stellantis and United Airlines, continues to advance its aircraft development and commercial operations with impressive speed and efficiency. The company has also established a significant lead over industry peers on the manufacturing and commercial operations fronts with the build out of its high-volume manufacturing facility in Covington, Georgia underway, and has revealed key strategic electric air taxi routes in New York and Chicago.

With a range of up to 100 miles, Archer's Midnight aircraft is designed to perform rapid back-to-back flights with minimal charge time in between. Archer's goal is to transform inter-city travel, replacing 60-90 minute commutes by car that can take over an hour in traffic with 10-20 minute electric air taxi flights that are safe, sustainable, have low noise levels and are cost competitive with ground transportation.