Story ID: 
Archer Rolls Out Four-seat Midnight eVTOL
By: Hanneke Weitering
Caption: Archer's newly revealed eVTOL, dubbed Midnight, will be manufactured in Georgia and is expected to enter service in 2025.
Word Count: 257
Archer Aviation yesterday publicly revealed at its Palo Alto, California facility a production version of the four-seat eVTOL the company aims to get into service in 2025.

Dubbed Midnight, the all-electric aircraft bears similarities to Archer’s subscale Maker technology demonstrator, a two-seat prototype the company has been flight testing over the past year. Both are fixed-wing models with 12 rotors—six stationary propellers on the wing trailing edges provide lift, while the six others on the wing leading edges tilt forward to transition from hover to cruise flight.

Also yesterday, Archer announced two key suppliers for the program, with Garmin selected to provide its G3000 integrated flight deck for the aircraft and Taiwan's Molicel chosen as the source for its lithium-ion battery cells. Archer said it has now appointed almost two-thirds of the suppliers for Midnight, including Honeywell (flight control actuators and thermal management), Mecaer (landing gear), FACC (parts of the fuselage and wing), and Hexcel (composites).

On Monday, the company said its manufacturing facility for Midnight will be in Covington, Georgia, on a 96-acre site adjacent to Covington Municipal Airport (KCVC). The 350,000-sq-ft facility—expected to open in the first half of 2024—would be able to produce 650 Midnight eVTOLs annually. A potential 550,000-sq-ft expansion would boost that to about 2,300 aircraft per year, according to Archer.

Want more? You can find a longer version of this article at FutureFlight.aero, a news and information resource developed by AIN to provide objective coverage and analysis of cutting-edge aviation technology.