Archer delivers first Midnight eVTOL aircraft to US Air Force, as part of AFWERX Agility Prime contract

Archer has deliv­ered its first Mid­night air­craft to the US Air Force (USAF) to eval­u­ate as part of its AFWERX Agili­ty Prime con­tract val­ued at up to $142M*.

The deliv­ery comes after the U.S. Depart­ment of Defense accept­ed Midnight’s mil­i­tary air­wor­thi­ness assess­ment, a crit­i­cal approval that con­firms Midnight’s readi­ness for flight test­ing by AFWERX.

This allows AFWERX to con­duct gov­ern­ment-direct­ed test­ing of the air­craft for the USAF and val­i­date oper­a­tional and mil­i­tary-spe­cif­ic mis­sion con­cepts.

Adam Gold­stein, CEO of Archer Avi­a­tion, said: “This deliv­ery rep­re­sents a piv­otal moment not only for Archer but for the future of mil­i­tary avi­a­tion. Togeth­er, our goal is to prove Midnight’s poten­tial and ensure the Unit­ed States con­tin­ues to lead the way with the world’s most advanced tech­nol­o­gy.

With its ver­ti­cal take­off and land­ing capa­bil­i­ties, pro­pri­etary elec­tric pow­er­train and low noise pro­file, Archer’s Mid­night air­craft is well-suit­ed for mil­i­tary avi­a­tion oper­a­tions. 

A team of USAF per­son­nel worked along­side Archer’s flight test team to ramp up oper­a­tions with Mid­night at Sali­nas. Togeth­er, these teams exe­cut­ed sim­u­lat­ed med­ical evac­u­a­tion, car­go, intel­li­gence, sur­veil­lance and recon­nais­sance flights. 

Col. Elliott Leigh, AFWERX Direc­tor and Chief Com­mer­cial­iza­tion Offi­cer for the Depart­ment of the Air Force, added: “Archer’s Mid­night air­craft has the poten­tial to sig­nif­i­cant­ly enhance our oper­a­tional capa­bil­i­ties.

“We look for­ward to con­tin­u­ing our work with our indus­try part­ners as we explore the ways that this advanced air­craft can con­tribute to the mis­sion.”

Archer says its Mid­night air­craft is expect­ed to pro­vide a much safer, cost-effec­tive and qui­eter alter­na­tive to exist­ing inter­nal com­bus­tion engine options.

As such, it holds the promise of enhanc­ing rapid response, agili­ty and oper­a­tional effec­tive­ness across a wide range of mis­sion pro­files.