Archer receives first USAF payment on $142 million contract

Archer Avi­a­tion announced yes­ter­day that the US Air Force has pro­vid­ed the com­pa­ny with its first instal­ment of near­ly $1M on con­tracts val­ued at up to $142 mil­lion.

The ini­tial pay­ment sig­nals the ongo­ing advance­ment of the part­ner­ship from sig­na­ture to exe­cu­tion as the AFWERX Agili­ty Prime pro­gram works with Archer to assess the trans­for­ma­tion­al poten­tial of the ver­ti­cal flight mar­ket and eVTOL tech­nolo­gies for DoD pur­pos­es.

The ini­tial pay­ment is relat­ed to a con­tract­ed deliv­er­able for a mobile flight sim­u­la­tor which the USAF and Archer will use to train pilots, assess flight con­trols and improve USAF personnel’s under­stand­ing of the oper­a­tional capa­bil­i­ties of Archer’s civil­ian use eVTOL air­craft plat­form and poten­tial future devel­op­ment of air­craft for Air Force use.

The sim­u­la­tor will also be deployed to key pub­lic and indus­try events to increase pub­lic aware­ness and engage­ment with eVTOL tech­nol­o­gy. Sev­er­al more of Archer’s deliv­er­ables are already under­way as part of the con­tracts, which include shar­ing wind tun­nel test­ing reports, project spe­cif­ic and sub­ject spe­cif­ic cer­ti­fi­ca­tion plans.

Archer CEO and founder Adam Gold­stein said: “Archer’s eVTOL tech­nol­o­gy can help main­tain the US posi­tion as a glob­al leader in avi­a­tion. To see our his­toric con­tract with the USAF move from sig­na­ture to exe­cu­tion is a reflec­tion of the strong com­mit­ment that the Depart­ment of Defense has made to secur­ing our country’s future by invest­ing in trans­for­ma­tion­al tech­nol­o­gy.”

With its ver­ti­cal take­off and land­ing capa­bil­i­ties, tar­get pay­load of approx­i­mate­ly 1,000lbs, pro­pri­etary elec­tric pow­er­train sys­tem, and low noise pro­file, Archer’s Mid­night air­craft rep­re­sents a poten­tial par­a­digm shift in mil­i­tary avi­a­tion and oper­a­tions.

These air­craft hold the promise of enhanc­ing rapid response, agili­ty, and oper­a­tional effec­tive­ness across a wide range of mis­sion pro­files, from per­son­nel trans­port and logis­tics sup­port to res­cue oper­a­tions and more.

Archer’s Mid­night air­craft is expect­ed to pro­vide a much safer and qui­eter alter­na­tive to heli­copters while being more cost-effec­tive for the US mil­i­tary to trans­port, oper­ate and main­tain in the field.

In May, Archer formed a Gov­ern­ment Ser­vices Advi­so­ry Board to expand its rela­tion­ship with the US Depart­ment of Defense as its Mid­night air­craft pro­gressed toward com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion.

Archer Avi­a­tion forms Gov­ern­ment Ser­vices Advi­so­ry Board to US DoD