PROSPECTUS SUPPLEMENT SUMMARY
This summary highlights selected information appearing elsewhere in this prospectus supplement, or the documents incorporated by reference and does not contain all of the information that you should consider before buying our securities. Because it is a summary, it may not contain all of the information that may be important to you. You should read this entire prospectus supplement carefully, including the section entitled “Risk Factors” and the documents we have incorporated by reference in this prospectus supplement, along with our consolidated financial statements and related notes incorporated by reference in this prospectus supplement.
Unless otherwise indicated or the context otherwise requires, references in this prospectus supplement to “we,” “our,” “us,” “Company,” or “Archer” refers to Archer Aviation Inc.
Overview
We are designing and developing electric vertical takeoff and landing (“eVTOL”) aircraft for use in urban air mobility (“UAM”) networks. Our mission is to unlock the skies, freeing everyone to reimagine how they move and spend time. Our eVTOL aircraft are designed to be safe, sustainable, and quiet. Our production aircraft, Midnight, which we unveiled in November 2022, is designed around our proprietary 12-tilt-6 aircraft configuration. This means that it has 12 propellers attached to six booms on a fixed wing with all 12 propellers providing vertical lift during take-off and landing, and the forward six propellers tilting forward to cruise position to provide propulsion during forward flight with the wing providing aerodynamic lift like a conventional airplane.
Midnight is designed to carry four passengers plus a pilot up to 100 miles at speeds up to 150 miles per hour, but is optimized for back-to-back short distance trips of around 20-miles, with minimal charge time in between trips. We are working to certify Midnight with the Federal Aviation Administration (“FAA”) so that we can then enter into commercial service in 2025.
Midnight is the evolution of our demonstrator eVTOL aircraft, Maker, which through its flight test program has helped validate our proprietary 12-tilt-6 aircraft configuration and certain key enabling technologies. The design of Midnight marries what we believe to be cutting-edge electric propulsion technology with state-of-the-art aircraft systems to deliver the key attributes of our eVTOL aircraft:
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Safety. High redundancy and simplified propulsion systems make for a significantly safer aircraft compared to a helicopter. Midnight has no single critical point of failure, meaning that should any single component fail, the aircraft can still safely complete its flight.
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Low noise. With its intended cruising altitude at approximately 2,000 feet, the design of Midnight is such that the noise that reaches the ground is expected to measure around 45 A-weighted decibels, approximately 100 times quieter than that of a helicopter. During forward flight, the aircraft’s tilt propellers spin on axes that are aligned with the oncoming air flow, rather than edge-wise to the flow, as is the case with traditional helicopters — further decreasing noise levels. Since Archer’s aircraft is spinning 12 small propellers rather than one large rotor, it can also spin them at significantly lower tip speeds, resulting in much lower noise levels.
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Sustainable. Midnight is all electric, resulting in zero operating emissions. Archer is committed to sourcing renewable energy wherever possible to power its aircraft. Archer’s design and engineering teams have worked to integrate materials into this aircraft that have their own unique sustainability stories. For example, Midnight’s seats are constructed out of “flax” fiber, a natural plant which requires very little irrigation and is highly absorbent of CO2. In addition, Archer’s design uses fabric made from recycled contents like plastic bottles.
We continue to work to optimize our eVTOL aircraft design for both manufacturing and certification. The development of an eVTOL aircraft that meets our business requirements demands significant design and development efforts on all facets of the aircraft. We believe that by bringing together a mix of talent with eVTOL, traditional commercial aerospace, as well as electric propulsion backgrounds, we have built a team that enables us to move through the design, development, and certification of our eVTOL aircraft with the FAA in an efficient manner, thus allowing us to achieve our end goal of bringing to market our eVTOL aircraft as efficiently as possible.