AFWERX Is Shelling Out Up To $142 Million to Evaluate Archer’s Midnight eVTOL

The Air Force’s AFWERX technology development arm has contracted with eVTOL maker, Archer, for delivery of up to six of its Midnight aircraft. Why it’s spending so much is a curious question.

AFWERX and Archer announced the agreement late last month as part of AFWERX’ Agility Prime program. The Air Force has also contracted with Joby for delivery of up to nine of its five-seat eVTOLs through Agility Prime. In both cases, what may be learned isn’t entirely clear or entirely positive.

For a potential cost of $142 million, AFWERX will get to evaluate Midnight, a four-passenger fixed-wing, 12 rotor aircraft that is roughly twice the size and weight of a small Bell 407 helicopter yet can only carry a nominal 1,000-pound payload (less than half the 407’s payload) for 20 miles before re-charging.

While the value of the contract awards to Archer covers more than the delivery of just six of its prototype Midnight aircraft, it breaks down to roughly $24 million per eVTOL based on the simple math.

When I spoke with Archer CEO, Adam Goldstein, earlier this year, he put the cost of one of the (basically same) Midnight eVTOLs that United Airlines is buying at $2 million. That’s a stark difference.

I asked Col. Tom Meagher, chief of AFWERX Agility Prime, why the cost differential is so large?

Meagher replied that, “There’s a lot of other options and things we can have in that work. While we can’t put out the specific price points for those vehicles on those portions of the contracts at this time, I do want to make it clear that that’s not all there is in the potential scope of the [Archer] contract work.”

That may be, but the eyebrow-raising cost differential and the lack of specific information underpinning it will presumably be of concern to congress and American taxpayers. Col. Meagher added that some of the evaluation work will center on Archer’s automated detect-and-avoid technology, landing zone detection and other automated aircraft systems.

How much these have actually been fleshed out by Archer (and what may learned from them) is likely in doubt given that the company’s near to midterm commercial debut will be with piloted Midnight air taxis. Hence, its investment in such automation tech may not be what the Air Force expects.

Meagher acknowledges that eVTOL makers’ go-to-market efforts will be manned (as required for FAA certification, approval neither has yet gained) but he contends that AFWERX’ interest is “not only to inform them of future roadmaps from a technology perspective that we’re interested in but also to give them insight on what things might make sense for investment from a dual-use perspective.”

That’s a generous outlook on this exercise which according to Col. Meagher is essentially a broad eVTOL learning opportunity. “What we’re doing in collaboration with these companies is essentially monitoring their technical and production readiness… to match up with our analysis and see how their performance is progressing.”

AFWERX is also looking to Midnight’s FAA certification in the 2024 timeframe. In fact, Meagher says the contracts with Archer are “contingent upon their progress towards certification”.

When I queried Archer’s CEO about that progress last March, he explained that Midnight was basically though two stages of the three-step FAA certification process, the third and yet to come step being the most difficult. He expected Midnight flight testing to begin by mid-year, a date now passed.

AFWERX’ chief had no information on when Midnight will make its first flight and stressed that Goldstein’s public statements on the schedule are not something he would comment on. Col. Meagher offered no specific information on when the Air Force would receive its first Midnight, saying that it may be delivered in 2024.

Whether that coincides with FAA certification and Archer’s contract contingencies as noted above was not mentioned. Nor were specific applications that AFWERX sees for a large low-altitude aircraft with a small payload and effectively no range.

Instead, Meagher emphasized that AFWERX has not associated eVTOLs with any specific requirements. The Air Force is keen to learn about first-generation distributed electric propulsion and “long-term, what does it look like from an operations and cost perspective?” Meager says.

One might suggest that the AFWERX could divine such information merely by observing how eVTOLs evolve in the market rather than allocating such a substantial part of its budget to such evaluation. The prototypes it will receive will logically be closer to what Archer will debut commercially than what the miliary might use.

The question of what sort of performance the USAF might expect from a necessarily heavier militarized Midnight is something AFWERX isn’t really considering Meager says. “That’s to be determined. At the end of the day with electric vehicles, they’ll be making weight tradeoffs. If there are specific military requirements that may add additional systems…”

AFWERX will look at possible higher power outputs, electric motor improvements and energy density improvements outside of Midnight but these will likely be marginal at best despite years of claims from designers and battery makers about the next “breakthrough technology”.

Importantly, Col. Meagher mentions the possibility of hybrid ICE/electric aircraft. After years of hype, the migration to both on-wing tilt-rotor designs and hybrid propulsion systems has been pronounced in the eVTOL community as the reality that battery-electric propulsion won’t cut it has crashed against the rhetoric.

And yet, AFWERX has so far opted to acquire pure EVs as opposed to hybrid designs it is aware of and to which it has already dedicated some SBIR funding. It’s interest in the noise or lack thereof that eVTOLs are supposed to enjoy may be one reason.

However, the ultra-quiet noise claims of eVTOL makers like Joby have recently come under scrutiny including the noise they make in ground-effect and urban environments as reported in a Bristol University study which I previously mentioned in Forbes.

Col. Meagher points out that some of the designs are optimized for low acoustic signatures in cruise conditions and that as more noise testing in different environments for commercial eVTOLs is conducted, industry and the Air Force will learn more.

AFWERX will do its acoustic testing “as we get more aircraft out there to characterize the noise in multiple areas of flight. It’s important to be able to provide that to other government stakeholders… We want to collect and validate that information,” Meagher says.

Information on how eVTOLs will perform in different environmental conditions – temperatures, weather, winds – is similarly lacking. Given Midnight’s low altitude envelope and power, it’s worth asking if AFWERX expects it to be operationally constrained, even in a test setting.

Meagher affirms that AFWERX will assess Midnight’s performance at Edwards AFB and elsewhere. The information will not only inform DoD but the eVTOL manufacturers themselves.

“Different weather constraints, whether it’s hot or cold, may affect their range and capabilities,” Meagher acknowledges. “That’s what we’re here to learn.”

In that sense Archer and others will enjoy the benefit of taxpayer-funded flight test analysis for systems the military has no near-term intention of fielding.

AFWERX will also seek to analyze how such aircraft can be integrated in the airspace system. Interestingly, it will be doing so as Archer and United Airlines inaugurate air taxi service in Chicago (thereby operating outside a test environment) if the companies’ claimed schedule holds.

Midnight does not compare favorably with current VTOL platforms the Air Force is acquiring including the new, relatively light-duty MH-139A Grey Wolf. Meagher acknowledges that such systems are designed for a range of missions.

eVTOLs may not be, but as more come online, get larger and scale in production and cost terms, the advantages of such aircraft for certain mission sets where range and payload are at less of a premium may emerge he says. However if that is the case, one might argue that investing significantly in eVTOL prototype acquisition could be an exercise worth waiting on for a bit.

The infrastructure required for such aircraft – charging, supply chain, domestic parts sourcing – is another facet that AFWERX will investigate but one that could arguably be done without acquiring early-stage prototypes.

Col. Meagher emphasizes that analyzing infrastructure needs is central to the effort and that some charging capacity is being erected at test locations – the cost of which must be added to the price tag for Archer’s aircraft. “If you have this test infrastructure for the vehicles,” he posits, “what else can you use it for on a base that has certain energy needs?”

It appears AFWERX will partner with the Defense Innovation Unit to figure that out using portable energy storage solutions. The portability of electricity is “critical” to how the Air Force will operate such vehicles and part of the calculus for how to approach either pure electric or hybrid systems.

A note that may go beyond the scope of the AFWERX-Archer project is assessing how eVTOLs (like all EVs) will face the issue of emerging offensive directed energy systems. While these have the potential to affect nearly all traditional aircraft and other systems, they may not necessarily render them immobile. EVs face that risk.

AFWERX will have a look at the implications of such threats and possible mitigations for them. But Meagher indicates that such assessment will be more broadly done within DoD.

A last curious aspect of the hundred million-plus acquisition of Archer’s prototypes is that Col. Meagher declined to give any timeframe for when AFWERX will share publicly what it has learned.

He says the organization will share data with its government partners including the FAA and the other Services but has no date for when it may share its assessment with Americans. In fact, the contracts with Archer and others include proprietary information agreements.

Spending up to $142 million on one basic research project which will likely benefit private sector companies long before it benefits the military may be argued to be a “general good”. But it’s a notable price to pay.