Archer receives Special Airworthiness Certificate from the FAA for its Maker eVTOL Aircraft, first hover test planned this year

Archer has received a Spe­cial Air­wor­thi­ness Cer­tifi­cate from the Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion (FAA), which cov­ers its Mak­er eVTOL demon­stra­tor air­craft. It means the com­pa­ny is still on track to con­duct its first hov­er flight test lat­er this year.

Archer has worked hard to main­tain a col­lab­o­ra­tive and trans­par­ent rela­tion­ship with the FAA through the Administration’s Cen­ter for Emerg­ing Con­cepts & Inno­va­tion and the Los Ange­les Air­craft Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion Office through­out the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion process. This lat­est mile­stone fol­lows Archer receiv­ing its G‑1 Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion Basis”) in Sep­tem­ber.

Brett Adcock, Archer co-founder and co-CEO, said: “Earn­ing our Spe­cial Air­wor­thi­ness Cer­tifi­cate from the FAA marks a sig­nif­i­cant moment for our com­pa­ny as we take anoth­er leap ahead toward our goal of bring­ing eVTOL trav­el to the world.

“We’re glad to share a com­mit­ment with the FAA to cre­ate urgent­ly-need­ed air trans­porta­tion solu­tions. We’re grate­ful to have devel­oped a strong rela­tion­ship with their Cen­ter for Emerg­ing Con­cepts & Inno­va­tion as we con­tin­ue to work to ensure our eVTOL air­craft adheres to the high­est stan­dards of safe­ty and com­pli­ance.

“In a year of excit­ing mile­stones for Archer, this moment serves as a key val­ida­tor for the incred­i­ble work our team is doing to trans­form our vision for urban air mobil­i­ty into a real­i­ty.”

The FAA’s inspec­tion of Archer’s Mak­er air­craft was held at the company’s Cal­i­for­nia flight test facil­i­ty, where Mak­er is under­go­ing final prepa­ra­tions for its first flight, as well as exten­sive safe­ty test­ing.

As part of its for­mal inspec­tion, the FAA con­duct­ed a com­pre­hen­sive review of Mak­er to con­firm the air­craft adheres to the Administration’s safe­ty stan­dards. Fol­low­ing its inspec­tion, the FAA issued Archer its Spe­cial Air­wor­thi­ness Cer­tifi­cate, sig­nal­ing Mak­er is safe to leave the ground and Archer may begin hov­er test flights with the air­craft.

Adam Gold­stein, Archer co-founder and co-CEO, added: “Our team has been work­ing tire­less­ly toward this moment, and it’s a tes­ta­ment to their effort and ded­i­ca­tion that we’ve suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ed the for­mal inspec­tion of Mak­er and received our Spe­cial Air­wor­thi­ness Cer­tifi­cate, the lat­est in a series of cer­ti­fi­ca­tion mile­stones.

“We’ve demon­strat­ed the qual­i­ty and via­bil­i­ty of our eVTOL air­craft while main­tain­ing our com­mit­ment to safe­ty above all else, and we now turn our focus toward the first flight tests of Mak­er. We look for­ward to shar­ing more excit­ing achieve­ments in the near future.”