Archer bolsters Flight Control and Software team as it prepares for first test flight later this year

Archer has put togeth­er its Flight Con­trol and Soft­ware team as the com­pa­ny ramps up to its first flight lat­er this year.

It will be led by Seri­go Fer­reira, who brings two decades of expe­ri­ence devel­op­ing, inte­grat­ing, val­i­dat­ing, ver­i­fy­ing and cer­ti­fy­ing fly-by-wire flight con­trol sys­tems.

He joins Archer after near­ly a decade with Gulf­stream Aero­space, where he most recent­ly was the Flight Con­trol Sys­tems Lead for Advanced Air­craft Sys­tems. He was respon­si­ble for the devel­op­ment, inte­gra­tion, val­i­da­tion and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of the flight con­trol com­put­ers for the Gulf­stream G400, G500 and G600.

Fer­reira said: “This is an excit­ing time for Archer and the broad­er avi­a­tion indus­try. I’m thrilled to have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to work on the flight con­trol sys­tem that will under­gird the entire air­craft and ush­er in the future of air trav­el.”

“Fly-by-wire sys­tems lever­age com­pu­ta­tion­al pow­er and elec­tron­ics to sim­pli­fy oper­a­tion and reduce pilot work­load. At the same time, they pro­vide pro­tec­tion func­tions, allow­ing us to design an air­craft as safe as it is inno­v­a­tive. Through Archer, I’m look­ing for­ward to push­ing the indus­try for­ward as we look towards the trans­porta­tion of tomor­row.”

Damien Bar­don, one of Archer’s ear­li­est employ­ees, is assum­ing the role of Direc­tor of Vehi­cle Man­age­ment Sys­tems. In this posi­tion, he will lead the Flight Con­trol and Soft­ware team in the devel­op­ment of the essen­tial air­craft com­po­nents that enable con­trol of the air­craft.

Pri­or to his time with Archer, Bar­don spent sev­er­al years at ACubed, Air­bus’ Sil­i­con Val­ley inno­va­tion cen­ter, lead­ing the avion­ics devel­op­ment for the Vahana eVTOL demon­stra­tor. He led the devel­op­ment of the Vahana avion­ics sys­tems from an ear­ly con­cept up to the com­ple­tion of a suc­cess­ful flight test cam­paign.

He has sig­nif­i­cant expe­ri­ence work­ing with avion­ics com­po­nents around nav­i­ga­tion, com­mu­ni­ca­tion, flight con­trols, embed­ded flight soft­ware and oth­er com­plex air­craft sys­tems that make fly-by-wire flight con­trols pos­si­ble.

Bar­don said: “It’s a priv­i­lege to be a part of a com­pa­ny like Archer that is paving the way for urban air mobil­i­ty. Our work devel­op­ing and imple­ment­ing the sys­tems that ulti­mate­ly con­trol the air­craft will be crit­i­cal towards achiev­ing first flight and oth­er mile­stones.”

Round­ing out the Flight Con­trol and Soft­ware team is Per­rine Math­ieu, Flight Con­trols and Avion­ics Pro­gram Lead. She will work along­side Bar­don, Fer­reira and the broad­er team and will be account­able for the devel­op­ment and imple­men­ta­tion of the fly-by-wire flight con­trol sys­tem of Archer’s pro­duc­tion air­craft.

She brings expe­ri­ence with avi­a­tion flight con­trol and vehi­cle man­age­ment sys­tems, most recent­ly with Bell, where she was respon­si­ble for vehi­cle man­age­ment sys­tems. At Bell, Math­ieu led the devel­op­ment and imple­men­ta­tion of soft­ware devel­op­ment, flight con­trols, avion­ics, elec­tri­cal sys­tems and han­dling qual­i­ties across sev­er­al plat­forms.

Pri­or to her time at Bell, Math­ieu worked as a design engi­neer for Tri­umph Aerostruc­tures, in the Vought Air­craft Divi­sion. Her broad range of expe­ri­ence in the avi­a­tion indus­try fur­ther strength­ens the Flight Con­trol and Soft­ware team as Archer con­tin­ues to work towards achiev­ing its fly­ing goals.

Math­ieu said: “It is an incred­i­ble oppor­tu­ni­ty to work with this team at Archer that is so full of tal­ent and expe­ri­ence, I am excit­ed to con­tribute to the devel­op­ment of the air­craft and the indus­try as a whole.”

Adam Gold­stein, Archer co-founder and co-CEO, added: “Damien, Ser­gio and Per­rine have decades of flight con­trol and sys­tems expe­ri­ence and are excep­tion­al addi­tions to the Archer team. We are excit­ed to share their con­tri­bu­tions as we move clos­er to first flight and to mak­ing sus­tain­able urban air mobil­i­ty a real­i­ty.”