A Future Air Taxi? Archer's Electric eVTOL Flies 55 Miles in 31 Minutes (electrek.co) 76
Archer Aviation is "the official air taxi partner" of the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, Electrek reported in May. In June it entered "a key development phase ahead of full-fledged flight certification and commercial operations" by completing a piloted flight in its flagship Midnight aircraft, "demonstrating a conventional takeoff and landing instead of vertical (it can do both)."
During that flight, which took place in the skies above Salinas, California, the eVTOL achieved a top speed of 125 mph and a maximum altitude of 1,500 feet above ground level. Most recently, Archer has taken its Midnight eVTOL above Salinas again, achieving its longest flight to date. Per Archer, the recent successful flight in California lasted 31 minutes, and the piloted Midnight eVTOL traveled 55 miles — the company's longest recorded flight yet with a pilot onboard... [Again with speeds exceeding 125 mph]
United Airlines CFO Mike Leskinen, who led the airline's early investment in Archer Aviation, was present at the test facility to witness the milestone flight. Leskinen congratulated the Archer team on its longest eVTOL flight and expressed his satisfaction with the Midnight aircraft's quiet operation.
Their aircraft even "reached speeds of nearly 150 miles per hour" the week before, according to Archer's announcement. They're calling it another milestone "as the company advances toward FAA certification in the U.S. and near-term commercialization in the United Arab Emirates."
And Archer's Founder/CEO said crossing the 50-mile mark at speed "is another clear step toward commercialization that shows the maturity of our program."
United Airlines CFO Mike Leskinen, who led the airline's early investment in Archer Aviation, was present at the test facility to witness the milestone flight. Leskinen congratulated the Archer team on its longest eVTOL flight and expressed his satisfaction with the Midnight aircraft's quiet operation.
Their aircraft even "reached speeds of nearly 150 miles per hour" the week before, according to Archer's announcement. They're calling it another milestone "as the company advances toward FAA certification in the U.S. and near-term commercialization in the United Arab Emirates."
And Archer's Founder/CEO said crossing the 50-mile mark at speed "is another clear step toward commercialization that shows the maturity of our program."
How long does it "rest" after that? (Score:2)
Or are we going to swap batteries and go between "air taxi stations" only?
Re: How long does it "rest" after that? (Score:2)
Well, they claim the pack has 142kwh of energy, and can recharge in 10 minutes for back to back trips... I'm going to assume that's no more then 80% for both longevity and reserve capacity... that's a charge rate of 681.6kw... assuming it's a flat charging curve, which it isn't. USB-C PD3.1 does 5A at 48V max. So to reach the required average power delivery for a 10 minute charge, you would need only 2,840 USB-C charging ports/cables. Now, in reality you'll need more because the charging curve will start ou
Re:How long does it "rest" after that? (Score:5, Informative)
Don't take the word "taxi" seriously. This isn't a vehicle you're going to commute to work in (unless you're insanely wealthy). It's an alternative to helicopters: a specialized vehicle that's useful for certain purposes, but not a mainstream form of transportation.
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It's a mode of transport for dicks who want to avoid congestion on a relatively short journey, while causing a lot of noise and pollution for other people. Rather than try to improve the traffic situation, they would rather just fly over the peasants.
Medical evacuation for example (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a mode of transport for dicks who want to avoid congestion on a relatively short journey, while causing a lot of noise and pollution for other people. Rather than try to improve the traffic situation, they would rather just fly over the peasants.
It's a possible alternative to a helicopter for short hauls. One that comes to mind is medical evacuation. Ever see the highway patrol stop traffic near an accident, and have a helicopter land and evacuate the injured?
I am not saying they are there, just that the possible mission list is a little more varied than you suggest.
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Look on the small side for med-evac.
Why would they get one of those instead of a helicopter? Less range, less space, not compatible with all the existing medical triage gear designed for med-evac helicopters...
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It's more efficient, which means less expensive to operate. That's a big advantage for a lot of applications.
The range will improve as batteries keep getting better. It may never match the range of a helicopter, but a lot of applications don't need that much range.
Re: Medical evacuation for example (Score:2, Insightful)
The biggest issue is that itâ(TM)s no better than a helicopter. It looks like it can land in less places than a helicopter.
Re: Medical evacuation for example (Score:3)
It will be able to land in most of the places where helicopters land. Of all of the helipads I've seen either in person or in photos, most of them have considerable space around them for reasons which should be obvious to this audience.
Traditional, typical helicopters also have some drawbacks that a craft like this does not, like a whirling single point of failure which is expensive to produce and requires exceptionally frequent inspection.
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>> like a whirling single point of failure
Yep. Let's replace a whirling single point of failure by 4 whirling single points of failure.
Those are 4 times less expensive, you can die cheaper (because you'll need much less time in the air to arrive at failure)
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Of all of the helipads I've seen either in person or in photos, most of them have considerable space around them for reasons which should be obvious to this audience.
Apologies for not being clear, but in the highway patrol stops traffic for an accident scenario. The helicopter lands on the highway. I've also seen it once on a dirt road. Improvised areas, not well developed helipads.
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The Archer Midnight has a wingspan of ~14.5 m. The Airbus H145 they use here for medivac has a length of ~ 13.5 m. Not a huge difference, and one that you could tune for the application. Also, if you screw up and touch a wingtip to something the result is likely to be less dramatic than if you screw up and touch a tail or main rotor to something.
Electric might be great for medivac, traffic helicopters, maybe police, where you have short trips with downtime in between. Electric might also be more reliable an
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Why would they get one of those instead of a helicopter? Less range, less space, not compatible with all the existing medical triage gear designed for med-evac helicopters...
Yes. I'll get it has a longer range, more space and is better suited to medical triage gear than any early helicopter.
That stuff's all a matter of design decision, and design decisions depend on intended use. This thing isn't intended to be used as a medivac craft, but one that it could be designed easily enough.
Comparing this toy to a purpose designed medivac chopper is like using a hammer to pound in a screw. Technically, I supposed, you could, but you'd be a lot better off using a screwdriver.
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Look on the small side for med-evac. Why would they get one of those instead of a helicopter? Less range, less space, not compatible with all the existing medical triage gear designed for med-evac helicopters...
I'm not referring to today's beta test versions of a quad copter, nor tomorrow's v1.0 once "developed". I'm referring to when such a quad has been prove to some minimal degree. US and EU military are working on battlefield VTOL. The gear will follow those projects.
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It's a possible alternative to a helicopter for short hauls. One that comes to mind is medical evacuation. Ever see the highway patrol stop traffic near an accident, and have a helicopter land and evacuate the injured?
Yes, but a much poorer one. A helicopter is far more efficient, which translates into a much higher range and cruise speed. If I had to choose, I would prefer the helicopter for medevac duties any day. I will be faster in professional hands and more likely to end up with the right specialists (as opposed to the nearest doctor), too.
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A helicopter is definitely not more efficient than a fixed wing.
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A helicopter is definitely not more efficient than a fixed wing.
Indeed. It's also not faster. And since this is VTOL, it will be able to land in most of the places where a heli can land.
None of that necessarily means this particular craft is ideal for medevac duties, but the argument the GP presented is nonsense, as you successfully pointed out.
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What in the heck are you talking about. Not only is this far less efficient but this prototype has already demonstrated a far higher cruise speed than a helicopter which typically is around the 100-130mph mark. Helicopters are actually slow. They benefit only from being able to fly in a straight line to a destination - something which a VTOL craft can also do.
If I had to choose, I would prefer the helicopter for medevac duties any day.
You are making a choice based on not only poor information about a device that exists, but also a complete lack of information about an experimental d
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It's a mode of transport for dicks who want to avoid congestion on a relatively short journey, while causing a lot of noise and pollution for other people. Rather than try to improve the traffic situation, they would rather just fly over the peasants.
It's a possible alternative to a helicopter for short hauls. One that comes to mind is medical evacuation. Ever see the highway patrol stop traffic near an accident, and have a helicopter land and evacuate the injured?
I am not saying they are there, just that the possible mission list is a little more varied than you suggest.
And will probably have the same problems as operating a helicopter. They're hugely weather dependent, require large flat areas to land and take off from (even though the foot print is fairly small, they rarely land or take off vertically) and will be pretty expensive to run. Also they tend not to be the safest aircraft as they have a lot of single points of failure. All of this makes them impractical to operate in urban environments.
Not sure why you'd pick one over a tried and tested Bell or Eurocopter i
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It's a mode of transport for dicks who want to avoid congestion on a relatively short journey, while causing a lot of noise and pollution for other people. Rather than try to improve the traffic situation, they would rather just fly over the peasants.
It's a possible alternative to a helicopter for short hauls. One that comes to mind is medical evacuation. Ever see the highway patrol stop traffic near an accident, and have a helicopter land and evacuate the injured? I am not saying they are there, just that the possible mission list is a little more varied than you suggest.
And will probably have the same problems as operating a helicopter. They're hugely weather dependent, require large flat areas to land and take off from (even though the foot print is fairly small, they rarely land or take off vertically) ...
For medical evacuation, I've seen the highway patrol stop traffic on the highway to create a helicopter landing zone. VTOL is pretty flexible in this regard.
All of this makes them impractical to operate in urban environments
Highways, happens all the time in urban environments.
\Not sure why you'd pick one over a tried and tested Bell or Eurocopter if you've got the use case for one.
Absolutely, I'd have to be pretty desperate for a v1.0 quad copter. :-)
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>> while causing a lot of noise and pollution
According to the company it is "up to 100X quieter than a helicopter when flying at cruising altitudes, making them virtually inaudible from the streets below". Zero pollution, obviously.
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"Up to 100x" leaves a lot of ambiguity. Maybe they are measuring the helicopter at 10ft and takeoff power, and measuring their craft at cruising altitude and speeds.
That's not just a possibility, it's what I fully expect, without independent testing.
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I'm assuming you have heard helicopters. They are noisy as hell and the "chop-chop-chop" of the rotors is audible for miles. I think we can expect an electric plane with much smaller propellers to be very considerably quieter and noise won't be a significant issue.
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"Maybe they are measuring the helicopter at 10ft and takeoff power, and measuring their craft at cruising altitude and speeds."
lol wut
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I can only see this as a tourist attraction on a good day.
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I can only see this as a tourist attraction on a good day.
One alternative. Urban medical evacuation. Highway to hospital.
Buy the hype (Score:2)
>> it's an alternative to helicopters...
Nah, you're completely wrong.
It's in fact a magnet for subvention money and investors with deep pockets.
Buy the hype before everybody realizes it's crashing.
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Wait a few months and you'll hear:
"Has anyone seen my shirt? I'm an investor in this eVTOL air-taxi thing and I seem to have lost mine. What is 'due diligence' anyway?"
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According to the company it is "Designed to conduct rapid back-to-back flights of 20-50 miles with minimal charge time in between. "
Probably it will land on helipads that are equipped with a DC fast charger. Far cheaper to operate than a conventional helicopter, and therefore a much less expensive ride.
But Archer's plane is a seaplane ? (Score:3)
Never getting in one of these (Score:3)
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I would rather get a bus to Niagara than fly in one of these deathtraps.
That's not terribly convincing. Now if you had said a barrel over Niagra, that would be something. :-)
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There was a recent overturned bus. Read other news sites.
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Could we just get some trains (Score:3)
Man, I'm not asking for a lot, just technology that's almost 200 years old, is super efficient at moving people and things even over long distances, and that can also be very lucrative. You don't need to invent shit, just lay the track down and run some goddamn trains like we used to.
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Am I not reading your link correctly?
It appears to be a countdown to a future, but close, date to when the railway is 200 years old. To me that seems like it means the railway is almost 200 years old.
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Except that recent archaeology seems to be suggesting that the first use of wheels was in a "carts on railways" context in mines several millennia BCE.
Sorry, I didn't keep hold of the reference. Boringly recent history from my interests.
Regardless of which, mining in several parts of England and Wales in the late 1600s were using horse-drawn carts on rails, which was leading to rapid experimentation towards a "railway" over several centuries. Someone is probably looking at a date for a particular combinatio
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Yeah, the article says "modern railway" which I take to mean a locomotive with an engine pulling cars.
It was simply funny to me since the person seemed to be saying modern railways were already 200 years old, and provided a link saying that comes in 30 days.
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"Reality isn't as simple as the simplifications make it out to be."
Hold the front page!
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Marx did call foe "centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State," after all.
Communists can't stand the idea of people being able to decide where they want to go without permission from the State.
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Communists can't stand the idea of people being able to decide where they want to go without permission from the State.
What most public transportation proponents are asking for is not an end to privately owned modes of transportation, but rather their dominance over all other forms of transportation. Furthermore, there is frankly no such thing as a completely privately owned mode of transport. You can own your car, but it is completely meaningless without the road network, and you don't own that. There are literally rough men with guns whose job it is to enforce the rules for using it.
Quieter (Score:2)
If you aren't already flying Cessnas and Archers (Score:4, Informative)
There are two new techs mentioned: VTOL and electric. Self-flying is distinct from both and not mentioned. So you will need a pilot's license.
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True. The first eVTOLs are still piloted normally, but the eventual goal is to have them all self-flying so they can be "air taxis"
So for now yes, you'll need a pilot's license, like all other eVTOLs currently in development right now. The eventual goal is to make them self-flying using technologies partly developed at NASA to manage tra
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So you will need a pilot's license.
Why? There are other things I am able to fly in without a pilots license. Why would this necessarily require a pilots license?
Re: If you aren't already flying Cessnas and Arche (Score:2)
Need to compare to helicopters (Score:2)
This occupies roughly the same niche as a Helicopter, so a fair comparison is with a helicopter of similar capacity in terms of cost, speed, noise footprint, etc. It would also make sense to compare to an electric conversion of a conventional helicopter. There is no reason a helicopter couldn't also be AI piloted, the issues are very similar.
As others have said "taxi" is a total misnomer, these will only be able to fly between specific ports, with the same restrictions as helicopters. That means that f
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As others have said "taxi" is a total misnomer
We already refer to existing flights with similar characteristics as "air taxi" service.
these will only be able to fly between specific ports, with the same restrictions as helicopters
Which are already providing service known as "air taxi"
That means that for most short trips, a car / limo will be faster.
Unless those short trips are city rooftop to rooftop, or city rooftop to suburb, and occur at peak traffic times. Which is mostly what "air taxi" service is used for now.
Is there a range of trips where there is a working business model? Maybe, but its not clear.
This is already a working business model with helicopters right now, so it is very clear. Helicopters have very high TCO, so it would be surprising if this wasn't more cost effective.
What about passengers? (Score:1)
I don't see info regarding how far it flew with 1 or more passengers. I'm not impressed with pilot-only metrics.
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Pounds of passenger is probably a better metric. These days you might have 1 passenger consume the weight-equivalent of 3 passengers.
Now all it needs... (Score:2)
Is an optional gasoline/ethanol generator module.
This way you got way more range and don't need special expensive aviation fuels, or all the fancy maintenance of helicopter motors or all that.
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Weight is a huge issue for aircraft, much more so than vehicles that sit on the ground or water. Adding a second motor and fuel supply will almost certainly reduce the passenger and cargo capacity. It doesn't sound like they have much capacity to spare on this model.
For a traditional aircraft, you would increase the wingspan to generate more lift, but that might not be an option if these need to land on helipads and other confined spaces.
I don't know much about VTOL but I imagine that presents additional we
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Batteries are very inefficient in the whole weight per power ratio.
I imagine it is possible to shrink the battery just enough to fit these elements and get an extended range.
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Oh, you very much will. Not because the regulatory authorities particularly give a damn about you killing yourself at 9.81m/s/s into the ground, but because they're not going to be complicit in some innocent third party on the ground (let's use the old stand-by of a school full of special-needs children of prominent politicians) getting "death from the skies" ploughing in through the roof.
Roads tend to be surrounded by defence in depth of "street
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What i meant is that the motors of an electric flying vehicle is just a lot simpler than an gas powered helicopter, and if the generator fail to work, you might still have some battery left to land safely, instead of a immediate failure.
Of course there will be regulations over it, but it's not a crapton of components to fail individually.
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That is very "engineerable".
Conventional rotorcraft (helicopters, single and multiple rotor) store a considerable amount of energy in the rotation of the "disc", and all (at least, all the ones I've used) have been able to decouple the disc from the engine/ gearboxes in the event of either subsystem failing, then setting the pitch of the rotor blades so that rotation is maintained by the flow of air up through the disc as the aircraft descends. The pilot in control maintains flight like that, "autogyrating"
Now test it ... (Score:2)
Re: Now test it ... (Score:2)
Don't forget the sections where speed is limited to 30 knots for some reason and the no-fly zones and detours adding 20 miles to the journey
Years ago I told Tim Cook... (Score:2)
...to drop the stupid car and focus on personal air transport - single passenger fully automated commute from home to the roof of your office.
You're welcome.
In a heartbeat (Score:1)
Fix your urbanism. (Score:2)
"air taxis" are an utopia, especially in cities.
It has always been.
Fix your broken urbanism instead.
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The broken part is not the estuary.
Hasn't gotten full-fledged flight certification.. (Score:2)
eVTOL - doing all the same things a helicopter can (Score:1)
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An helicopter has one motor.
The current wave of eVTOL have multiple ones. A VoloCity has 18.
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Archer? (Score:2)
Are we not doing phrasing anymore? Do you get into one of these then slip into a coma where you traipse through alternate realities for there to five seasons before waking up?
See also: Volocopter's VoloCity in Europe (Score:2)
VoloCity is a 2-person eVTOL which is being tested in France.
https://www.volocopter.com/en [volocopter.com]
Volocopter is now part of Diamond Aircraft.
Will there be a 2028 Olympics? (Score:2)
I thought Trump was making the country so hostile to brown-skinned people that many countries simply won't be able to get visas for their teams.
It'll be a Russia-US contest.