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Anduril and Archer Aviation on Monday announced the joint development of a vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) platform that can serve both commercial and defense applications.
The defense variant of the VTOL aircraft, dubbed Thunder, was unveiled by Anduril at the Farnborough Airshow in England.
The companies said that the dual-use platform represents a step change in the vertical lift space, leveraging commercial electric propulsion for VTOL aircraft as well as offering the speed, range, payload and operating costs that will be useful for defense and commercial uses.
It operates on a hybrid-electric powertrain that helps boost the platform's range and endurance, while it also utilizes dual tiltrotors to maintain its efficiency in different flight regimes by lowering power demand and fuel consumption when cruising and minimizing its acoustic signature to increase its survivability when making a low-altitude ingress.
The platform has been configured to carry modular, heavy payloads for a range of commercial and defense applications, building on Archer's experience developing and flying air taxis.
"From raw performance to producibility, harnessing the best technologies from the commercial eVTOL market for defense is how Thunder will deliver operational value to our customers," said Shane Arnott, SVP of maneuver dominance at Anduril.
"The clean-sheet, dual-use platform that we've built with Archer truly represents a step change in capability," Arnott added.
Adam Goldstein, founder and CEO of Archer, said the clean sheet design was necessary to allow the two companies to "build from the ground up to meet the needs of modern commercial and defense applications."
"We couldn't simply tweak our existing aircraft. Instead, we took a bold first principles approach alongside Anduril to develop what we believe is the most sophisticated vertical lift aircraft ever made," Goldstein added.
The announcement said the team behind the aircraft had completed multiple test flights with full-scale surrogate aircraft, which the companies called a critical step to proving the systems that will help power the Thunder.
Thunder's first flight is planned for 2027, according to Anduril and Archer.
Archer is expected to announce commercial partners for the civilian variant of the VTOL.
Original article source: Anduril, Archer Aviation unveil hybrid-electric VTOL for defense and commercial use
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