Midnight is designed to be safe, sustainable, quiet and,\nwith its expected payload of over 1,000 pounds, can carry four passengers plus\na pilot. Midnight is optimized for back-to-back short distance trips of around\n20-miles, with a charging time of approximately 10 minutes in-between. Archer\nis working to certify Midnight with the FAA in late-2024 and will then use it\nas part of its UAM network, which it plans to launch in 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFrom day one Archer\u2019s strategy has always been about\nfinding the most efficient path to commercializing eVTOL aircraft,\u201d said Adam\nGoldstein, Archer\u2019s Founder and CEO. \u201cWe believe our strategy and team’s\nability to execute on it has allowed us to establish our leadership position in\nthe market and is why we are confident we will be the first company to certify\nan eVTOL aircraft in the US with the FAA.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/Midnight-Interior-Archeredit.jpg\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nArcher\u2019s unique approach to designing Midnight focuses on\ncombining high function and high emotion, inspiring passengers to want to\nexperience it, similar to the feeling that was evoked in this country during\nthe Golden Age of aviation in the 1950s. Archer is confident that Midnight will\nlead the way in this new era of vertical flight. Midnight marries cutting-edge\nelectric propulsion technology with state-of-the-art aircraft systems to\ndeliver the key attributes of our eVTOL aircraft: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Safety. High redundancy and simplified propulsion systems\nmake for a significantly safer aircraft compared to a helicopter. Midnight has\nno single critical points of failure, meaning that should any single component\nfail, the aircraft can still safely complete its flight. In addition, the\nelectric motors used in Midnight have significantly less moving parts than\nthose found in a gas turbine or piston engine, allowing it to operate with less\nmaintenance and lower overall risk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Low noise. Designed to cruise at approximately 2,000 feet,\nthe design of Midnight is such that the noise that reaches the ground is\nexpected to measure around 45 A-weighted decibels (dBA), almost 1,000 times\nquieter than that of a helicopter. During forward flight, the aircraft\u2019s tilt\npropellers spin on axes that are aligned with the oncoming air flow, rather\nthan edgewise to the flow, as is the case with traditional helicopters –\nfurther decreasing noise levels. Since Archer\u2019s aircraft is spinning 12 small\npropellers rather than one large rotor, it can also spin them at significantly\nlower tip speeds, resulting in much lower noise levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sustainable. Midnight is all electric, resulting in zero\noperating emissions. Archer is committed to sourcing renewable energy wherever\npossible to power its aircraft. Archer\u2019s design and engineering teams have\nworked tirelessly to integrate materials into this aircraft that have their own\nunique sustainability stories. For example, Midnight\u2019s seats are constructed\nout of \u201cflax\u201d fiber, a natural plant which requires very little irrigation and\nis highly absorbent of CO2. In addition, Archer\u2019s design uses fabric made from\nrecycled contents like plastic bottles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe continue the push towards commercialization, with the\nvast majority of our resources focused on completing the development and\ncertification of Midnight, building out our manufacturing and supply chain\ncapabilities and hardening our go-to-market plans.\u201d said Mark Mesler, Archer\u2019s\nCFO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In August, Archer completed Midnight\u2019s preliminary design\nreview covering all aspects of the aircraft\u2019s specifications and manufacturing\nrequirements, which enabled it to determine that the design is feasible for\nType Certification and commercialization. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Archer has also made rapid progress on Maker\u2019s flight-testing\nprogram and is on schedule to complete a full transition flight in the coming\nweeks, just twelve months after its first hover flight. Achieving this\nmilestone will further validate the flight physics of Archer\u2019sproprietary\ntwelve-tilt-six configuration that it uses on both Maker and Midnight, as well\nas a number of the key enabling technologies, such as the aircraft flight\ncontrol system. The Maker flight test program has generated invaluable data that\nArcher has leveraged in the development and certification path of Midnight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Archer Aviation Inc., publicly unveiled its production aircraft, Midnight, a pilot-plus-four-passenger eVTOL aircraft during its Open House event in Palo Alto, CA. Midnight is the evolution of Archer\u2019s demonstrator eVTOL aircraft, Maker, which has validated its proprietary twelve-tilt-six configuration and key enabling technologies. Watch Video Midnight is designed to be safe, sustainable, quiet and, with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":24045,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[140],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-evtol"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Midnight-Archer-edit.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24043"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24043\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24047,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24043\/revisions\/24047"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}