Archer Aviation has announced that it has completed 402 test flights so far this year, surpassing the 400 test flight goal it set for 2024 approximately four months ahead of schedule. The 400 plus flights were conducted over the last eight months as the company ramps flight test operations in advance of for-credit flight testing with the FAA.
Most recently, the Archer flight test team has focused on five key testing areas. The first is transition Flights, continuing to conduct longer-distance and higher-speed transition flights to gather data, extend endurance and ensure maximum safety. Second, high-rate operations – increasing per-day flights to simulate the high cadence of Archer’s anticipated commercial operations and test Midnight’s durability. Third, advancing landing profiles – completing a series of hover landings in various wind conditions with different rates of descent and flare heights to expand Midnight’s wind envelope and further optimize its landing profile. Fourth, enhancing acoustic measurement, conducting a series of hover operations with various microphone arrays to collect supplemental data for the FAA and to further evaluate and tune Midnight’s noise signature. And finally, optimizing control laws: regressing through the envelope with a series of optimizations made to the control laws which will extend Midnight’s endurance.
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