Archer’s eVTOL demonstrator aircraft Maker completes first hover flight as it prepares for extensive test campaign in 2022

Archer’s eVTOL demon­stra­tor air­craft, Mak­er, has com­plet­ed its first suc­cess­ful hov­er flight. The mile­stone also marked the com­ple­tion of the com­pa­ny’s first full and com­plete sys­tems test and val­i­da­tion of every hard­ware and soft­ware com­po­nent work­ing as intend­ed to move the air­craft in the air.

The flight test was com­plet­ed on Decem­ber 16th and saw Mak­er accel­er­ate off the ground and hov­er­ing in place, before return­ing to the ground safe­ly. The air­craft is an autonomous, two-seater eVTOL air­craft that has been cer­ti­fied for flight test­ing by the FAA.

The mile­stone also result­ed in the suc­cess­ful check­out of the com­pa­ny’s flight con­trol sys­tem in flight and the end-to-end close of flight soft­ware. With the first flight achieved, Archer now plan to move for­ward with an exten­sive flight test cam­paign into 2022 and beyond.

Adam Gold­stein, Archer co-founder and co-CEO, said: “Every­thing we’ve accom­plished this year, every mile­stone hit and part­ner­ship struck, was all with one goal in mind: devel­op­ing both an air­craft and a UAM ecosys­tem that could scale and change the face of intra-city trav­el

“With our first hov­er flight now com­plet­ed, we’re one major step clos­er to that goal and have proven that Archer can work at a fast pace with­out sac­ri­fic­ing safe­ty or qual­i­ty. Our team stands ready to con­tin­ue that pace as we work toward launch­ing an aer­i­al ride-shar­ing ser­vice in late 2024.”

In Novem­ber, Archer’s ded­i­cat­ed flight test team, con­sist­ing of experts in flight test, bat­tery, propul­sion, flight con­trols, soft­ware and avion­ics, moved from the company’s head­quar­ters in Palo Alto to a new flight test facil­i­ty to pre­pare for this mile­stone.

Over the past two months, the team has been focused on Maker’s inte­gra­tion and ground test­ing in order to pre­pare Mak­er for a suc­cess­ful first hov­er flight, as well as ensur­ing it meets the FAA’s stan­dards for air­wor­thi­ness cer­ti­fi­ca­tion.

After being ful­ly inte­grat­ed, Mak­er moved into its ground test­ing phase, which includ­ed ver­i­fi­ca­tion of the con­trol and propul­sion sys­tems, along with dri­ving the motors at full pow­er, and then putting those motors through stress test­ing to ensure all sys­tems were oper­a­tional and ready to with­stand flight test­ing. Upon com­plet­ing an unteth­ered test, which ver­i­fied the entire propul­sion and flight con­trol sys­tem was func­tion­ing cor­rect­ly, Archer’s flight test team approved the air­craft for its first flight.

The moment was par­tic­u­lar­ly sig­nif­i­cant in avi­a­tion his­to­ry as this week marks the 118th anniver­sary of the Wright Broth­ers’ first flight at Kit­ty Hawk, North Car­oli­na in 1903 — the moment where human­i­ty offi­cial­ly took to the skies for the very first time. Eric Wright, a descen­dant of Orville and Wilbur, and Archer’s own head of cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, placed a his­toric piece of the Wright Fly­er in Mak­er for its inau­gur­al flight to mark the full cir­cle moment.

Brett Adcock, Archer co-founder and co-CEO, added: “The past six months has been an incred­i­ble jour­ney, from unveil­ing Mak­er to watch­ing it take its first flight. It’s been hum­bling to build a lead­ing eVTOL com­pa­ny and edu­cate the pub­lic on clean trans­porta­tion alter­na­tives. Today is a mile­stone for both Archer and the future of trav­el. I’m extreme­ly proud of this excep­tion­al team.”

As Archer flies into the new year, this test­ing cam­paign will broad­en to include hov­er enve­lope expan­sion, advanc­ing Maker’s design capa­bil­i­ties and reach­ing high­er alti­tudes. Fol­low­ing the hov­er expan­sion, the team will begin the tran­si­tion enve­lope expan­sion ensur­ing Mak­er is able to move from hov­er to for­ward flight. While expand­ing Mak­er’s test flights, Archer also plans to unveil its pilot­ed, four-seat pro­duc­tion-intent air­craft in 2023.

Marc Lore, renowned entre­pre­neur and first investor in Archer, said: “As an ear­ly investor in Archer, it’s been reward­ing to watch Archer grow as a com­pa­ny and real­ly help shape the indus­try. What began as a mis­sion-dri­ven com­pa­ny to change how we think of dai­ly trans­porta­tion, has today proven that pas­sion and mis­sion can yield incred­i­ble results.

“I con­grat­u­late the whole team on today’s first hov­er flight accom­plish­ment and look for­ward to see­ing the way Archer’s unique mode of trans­porta­tion shapes our cities of tomor­row.”