Understanding U.S. eVTOL developers’ long trudge through certification

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Five years after revealing its plans to list on the New York Stock Exchange, electric vertical take-off and landing developer Archer Aviation announced on its March 2 earnings call that the Federal Aviation Administration has accepted 100% of the means of compliance for its Midnight air taxi. Means of compliance (MOCs) are the detailed design standards used to show compliance with airworthiness criteria, and are an essential part of any aircraft certification program. However, they are typically established early in a program, which begs the question: What took so long?

Archer, which aims to certify Midnight before the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, has not been alone in this slog — rival eVTOL developer Joby Aviation has been “stuck” at 97% acceptance of its MOCs since 2023. Certification is not a linear process, and having some MOCs outstanding has not prevented either company from advancing in other areas, as Joby illustrated during its own recent earnings call when it reported significant progress in the development and acceptance of FAA test plans (stage four of its five-stage certification model). A Joby spokesperson told The Air Current that its remaining 3% of MOCs concern how aircraft charge status is communicated to the pilot, a human factors topic that could entail some tweaks to symbology and alerting logic but is unlikely to require a significant redesign.

Related: Understanding Joby’s progress toward a certified eVTOL

Although both companies have now overcome the major hurdles related to MOCs, the fact that it took them years to do it underscores the challenges associated with certifying new technologies with the FAA — problems not limited to eVTOLs.

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