“Archer Aviation Alongside Partners, Team Up To Trial Dual-Use eVTOL Cargo Aircraft For UK Market” 

Archer Avi­a­tion along­side part­ners, Anduril Indus­tries, Sky­ports Drone Ser­vices and Atkin­sRéalis, have teamed up for a series of up-and-com­ing dual-use eVTOL car­go air­craft tri­al pro­grams in the UK, reports a press release. This project is to be led by Anduril and will include a bid for Future Flight (UKRI) oppor­tu­ni­ties.

The release explains, “Anduril and part­ners will explore civ­il and defence appli­ca­tions in the UK using Archer’s Mid­night eVTOL air­craft. This includes explo­rations for beyond visu­al line of sight (BVLOS) oper­a­tions, enabling low-emis­sion, rapid-response logis­tics to sup­port a wide range of UK-focused civ­il and mil­i­tary use cas­es, includ­ing car­go.” 

Anduril who already has an exist­ing part­ner­ship with Archer, is to serve as the lead sys­tems inte­gra­tor incor­po­rat­ing soft­ware-defined mis­sion auton­o­my, com­mu­ni­ca­tions and com­mand-and-con­trol sys­tems tai­lored for UK oper­a­tional needs. Archer will act as the plat­form provider, adapt­ing its Mid­night air­craft plat­form for dual-use appli­ca­tions and con­tin­u­ing its work with Anduril on a planned hybrid VTOL air­craft. 

The project will has­ten Anduril’s com­mit­ment to the UK’s Defence and econ­o­my bring­ing fur­ther invest­ment, job cre­ation and com­pe­ti­tion. Mean­while, the col­lab­o­ra­tion is to con­tin­ue work on Archer’s pre­vi­ous­ly announced hybrid-propul­sion VTOL air­craft.

Dr Rich Drake

Dr Rich Drake, MD of Anduril UK com­ment­ed, “This part­ner­ship brings togeth­er Archer’s lead­ing eVTOL tech­nol­o­gy, Sky­ports’ infra­struc­ture exper­tise and Atkin­sRéalis’ safe­ty sys­tems in order to sup­port future flight projects, accel­er­at­ing VTOL and BVLOS devel­op­ments.” 

He con­tin­ued, “It also unlocks oppor­tu­ni­ties in defence and civ­il domains includ­ing rapid, low-emis­sion urban trans­port and sur­veil­lance capa­bil­i­ties for defence appli­ca­tions. Intro­duc­ing Archer to the UK, along­side expe­ri­enced local part­ners, marks a step for­ward in deliv­er­ing inte­grat­ed air mobil­i­ty.”

They will be sup­port­ed by Atkin­sRéalis’ expe­ri­ence with incor­po­rat­ing nov­el avi­a­tion tech­nolo­gies into UK air­space. The com­pa­ny was recent­ly appoint­ed as the Civ­il Avi­a­tion Authority’s (CAA) first approved asses­sor of com­mer­cial drones.

Sky­ports Drone Ser­vices com­ple­ments the approach with its own exten­sive oper­a­tional expe­ri­ence, hav­ing deliv­ered numer­ous BVLOS cam­paigns for major clients includ­ing the NHS and  Roy­al Mail. In 2024, it took part in The Roy­al Navy Heavy Lift Chal­lenge, show­cas­ing the effi­ca­cy of dual-use air­craft. 

The team is well-posi­tioned to sup­port the UK’s ambi­tion to become a glob­al leader in avi­a­tion tech­nolo­gies.

Ver­i­ty Richard­son, Head of Archer’s UK Busi­ness Devel­op­ment, UK, remarked, “This col­lab­o­ra­tion marks the next phase of our part­ner­ship with Anduril. There’s an incred­i­ble amount of oppor­tu­ni­ty here in the UK and world­wide to deploy dual-use advanced air­craft and we look for­ward to mak­ing it a real­i­ty.”

Alex Brown, Direc­tor of Sky­ports Drone Ser­vices added, “The UK Gov­ern­ment is mak­ing strong progress in enabling per­ma­nent BVLOS drone oper­a­tions. Our first project on car­go ser­vices will lay the ground­work for oth­er appli­ca­tions with sig­nif­i­cant val­ue, such as sur­veil­lance and search and res­cue.”

Ver­i­ty Richard­son

The release con­tin­ues, “Over the past two years, Atkin­sRéalis and Sky­ports have been demon­strat­ing the fea­si­bil­i­ty of an eVTOL ecosys­tem in the UK, as mem­bers of the Advanced Mobil­i­ty Ecosys­tem Con­sor­tium, which is sup­port­ed by the Future Flight Chal­lenge Phase 3. This con­sor­tium is devel­op­ing key tech­nol­o­gy and infra­struc­ture, and explor­ing key aspects of the pas­sen­ger jour­ney, vehi­cle oper­a­tion, air­space nav­i­ga­tion, ground charg­ing, and local stake­hold­er engage­ment.”

David Clark, Atkin­sRéalis Glob­al Head of Aero­space & Defence, said, “Lever­ag­ing our expe­ri­ence in nov­el air­craft design and emerg­ing reg­u­la­to­ry frame­works, we will be sup­port­ing the team to safe­ly inte­grate auto­mat­ed uncrewed air­crafts into the UK’s skies. The com­bi­na­tion of local exper­tise with invest­ment from indus­try lead­ers like Archer and Anduril will strength­en the UK’s posi­tion at the fore­front of the future of flight.”

For more infor­ma­tion

www.anduril.com

www.archer.com 

www.skyportsdroneservices.com

www.atkinsrealis.com

(Top image: Mid­night Air­craft)

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