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The electric vertical take-off and landing industry has no shortage of propellers. None of them have received as much scrutiny as the aft propellers on Archer’s Maker and Midnight aircraft, the focus of endless online speculation and a recent short-seller’s report.
Like two other prominent eVTOL models in development — Vertical Aerospace’s VX4 and Wisk’s Gen 6 — Archer’s earlier Maker prototype and larger Midnight aircraft have a row of tilting propellers mounted in front of the wing and fixed lifting propellers mounted behind it. Archer originally planned to certify Midnight with two-bladed lifting props but has also flight tested three- and four-bladed versions, prompting much conjecture about the ultimate production configuration of the aircraft.
In an interview this week with The Air Current, Archer chief technology officer Tom Muniz confirmed that the company now plans to certify Midnight with four-bladed lifting propellers, rather than the original two-bladed propellers that are currently installed on its piloted prototype for conventional take-off and landing (CTOL) flight testing.
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