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Archer confirms three conforming, piloted Midnight aircraft now under construction; to be used in ‘for credit’ testing by FAA

Archer has announced today (Wednes­day) that it is well under way in con­struct­ing the Company’s first three con­form­ing Mid­night air­craft, with the first set to begin final assem­bly in the com­ing weeks.

Archer’s ini­tial fleet of pilot­ed air­craft will begin flight test­ing lat­er this year, and sub­se­quent­ly be used in ‘for cred­it’ test­ing with the Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion as the com­pa­ny pro­gress­es towards com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion in 2025.

These air­craft will have key com­po­nents and sys­tems that con­form to the intend­ed type design for FAA cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, enabling ‘for cred­it’ flight test­ing after the com­ple­tion of the Company’s flight test­ing phase planned for lat­er this year. Final assem­bly will be done at Archer’s man­u­fac­tur­ing facil­i­ty in San Jose, Cal­i­for­nia.

Adam Gold­stein, Archer’s founder and CEO, said: “The key to achiev­ing FAA cer­ti­fi­ca­tion is fly­ing a con­form­ing air­craft. I believe we are posi­tioned to be the first in the sec­tor to do so.

“From day one, Archer’s strat­e­gy has been to build an air­craft that is cer­ti­fi­able and man­u­fac­turable at scale. This focus is what has allowed us to move quick­er and more effi­cient­ly than any oth­er com­pa­ny in the indus­try over the last few years.”

Archer’s goal is to trans­form urban trav­el, replac­ing 60–90-minute com­mutes by car with esti­mat­ed 10–20 minute flights that are safe, sus­tain­able, low noise, and cost-com­pet­i­tive with ground trans­porta­tion.

Archer’s Mid­night is a pilot­ed, four-pas­sen­ger air­craft designed to per­form rapid back-to-back flights with min­i­mal charge time between flights.

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Jason Pritchard

Jason Pritchard is the Editor of eVTOL Insights. He holds a BA from Leicester's De Montfort University and has worked in Journalism and Public Relations for more than a decade. Outside of work, Jason enjoys playing and watching football and golf. He also has a keen interest in Ancient Egypt.

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