California-based electric aircraft-maker Archer Aviation has displayed that its "Midnight" aircraft can fly horizontally, achieving speeds of up to 100 miles per hour, New Atlas reported.
The company released footage of its successful test flight on its YouTube channel in June.
According to New Atlas, Archer joins Joby Aviation, AutoFlight, and Beta Technologies as the only electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) companies with aircraft that have transitioned from hovering to horizontal flight.
"Successfully completing the transition from hover to wing-borne flight with a full-scale eVTOL aircraft is a tremendous engineering feat that only a handful of companies in the world have achieved," said Archer Aviation chief engineer Dr. Geoff Bower. "Over the seven eVTOL aircraft I've built and flown in my career, they have gotten progressively larger as we pursued payloads that made the aircraft platform commercially viable. Midnight is believed to be one of the largest eVTOL aircraft ever to achieve transition and one of the first that is purpose built to carry enough passengers to be able to operate a successful air taxi business."
Planet-overheating air pollution from the aviation industry accounted for 2% of all energy-related carbon pollution in 2022, according to the International Energy Agency. Electric aircraft are a welcome development in the field — particularly as demand for air travel increases.
The recent advancements of companies like Archer show that these vessels are viable and are expected to carry actual human passengers in the future. The Archer Midnight is intended as an air taxi, capable of ferrying a pilot and four passengers at a time.
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In May, the startup indicated in a press release that it hopes to offer taxi services with its Midnight aircraft to Kakao T mobile app users in South Korea as early as 2026, considerably reducing long commute times for weary travelers.
Archer also plans to bring the technology to cities in the United States, including Chicago, New York, and the Bay Area, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
While larger electric aircraft remain a more distant dream at a commercial scale, researchers have also been developing sustainable aviation fuels, including the use of biomass and hydrogen, to work toward a cleaner future of air travel.
"Here in small-town Georgia, we're excited to watch Archer — their massive new manufacturing plant is going up just at the edge of town beside our airport," wrote one commenter on the New Atlas article about the successful test flight. "At the same little airport my dad took me to watch planes take-off in the '60s, I'll be able to take my grand-kids and watch super-cool electric planes!"
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According to New Atlas, Archer Aviation's hover-to-wing-borne accomplishment came just seven months after the Midnight's first test flight.
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