Can you answer something though? You say in the interview that you tilt the "engines" to eliminate other, take off and landing only engines, BUT IN THE NEXT SENTENCE YOU SAY "here are our engines just for taking off and landing" It doesn't really make sense, no?
Also, sure, you have enough battery packs to "tolerate" failures, but you guys know what happens when GIANT battery packs fail right? Have you tested the insulators ability to eat up a multi cell failure in the same area?
@@ArcherAviation I first heard about you guys when Trent Palmer toured your facility a couple years ago. You've made a lot of progress since then. Hopefully you can get a certified aircraft taking passengers soon.
@@poiu477 It’s simple: They need 12 engines for hovering and 6 engines for forward flight. If these were all either vertical or horizontal, you would need 18 engines. By tilting 6 of them, you need only 12 in total.
What a refreshing unrehearsed, non-PR style greeting - the kind that you get from someone who is there for the product, not just to sell it. Awesome stuff.
Kind of reminds me of that Mitchell and Webb look sketch where they are filming a home renovation show: the host walks up to the door and knocks and the guy is like "why did you knock on my door? I've already said hello. The cameramen came in and put a microphone on me, remember?"
As a kid who grew up watching scott manley and is now pursuing a masters degree focusing on vtol and rotor dynamics this is the perfect full circle moment
As a kid who grew up reading Janes All The World Aircraft in the 60's, I saw too many of these concept-planes/choppers/etc. eventually come to nothing. Hiller's flying platform, Custer's channel-wing, all had their look-and-feel vibe that this one has. The more _conventional_ the airframe appeared and behaved the more likely it would become successful. The exceptions were very rare.
Not doing vtol and rotor but also master in AE and Scott has been a great motivator during all this time. Great to hear others are also in a similar situation. Scott, your channel is awesome and motivates us all.
I love these factory walk-throughs. Scott would be the perfect industrial spy, he digs right into the details and the parameters any the hows and whys, really engaging to watch.
I see this kind of stuff all the time. Being an automation FSE means being in factories of all types. Everything from packaging, manufacturing, and food production/processing. It's absolutely fascinating, and one of the reasons i really like my job. Every place is just a little bit (or sometimes a LOT) different than the last. I can and have just stood and watched a machine work, because all the fiddly bits moving in concert is mesmerizing.
Thank you Scott. This is the best presentation I have seen about where EPs (Electric Planes) are in the development cycle. No marketing types blathering about ROI or tax benefits. Just solid technical information without any BS. Excellent. I've hung up my David Clarks now, but would love to be able to fly again in a personal EP.
The concept has been around for some time now, they tried them on GA aircraft and were unironically called Q-tip props. They're still around on some aircraft today, but didn't deliver near the performance or quieter operation that they promised. There was a measurable improvement, but marginal, unfortunately. The blade tip was overly simplistic and made presumably with a vague understanding winglet aerodynamics, so it fell short of its potential. We could theoretically design a much better blade tip modeling them after the slight upward winglet designs seen on modern air racers, but scimitar shaped blades are the better option when it comes to efficiency and sound. Scimitar blades are analogous to what swept wings did for early jet aircraft, allowing them to fly closer to transonic and supersonic regimes with less compressibility and retaining good lift with transonic shockwave formation. The curved leading edge when looked at in a radial perspective delays shock formation to a higher airspeed, so the prop can be longer without suffering from shockwave formation that kills lift and robs power at higher speeds (really the limiting factor in the top speed of racing aircraft). It can be seen best on expensive/big aircraft with turbine engines running more than five blades, an example being the most recent 8 bladed prop on the C-130. You can see the same design on some newer helicopter rotors as well, the AH-64 Apache being a noteworthy example. Eurocopter made a pretty radical design a while back with great results (you can read more about it by searching "Blue Edge Rotor"). The combination of a scimitar and a blade tip similar to the Blue Edge would be an absolutely fantastic prop if realized.
@@Skinflaps_Meatslapper I'd imagine the engineering on scimitar blades gets far more complex when varying the pitch. I've seen them on the ATR-72s & elsewhere, but I've never understood how they handled that. Even with small variations in pitch, the outer part of the blades would seem to capture far, far more air than the inner part, leading to a very uneven distribution of thrust force along the blade, far more than on a straight blade. I'd think that would cause quite a bit more fatigue near the prop hub due to the blades torquing forward from that effect, and torquing aft during reverse thrust. Do you know how this was addressed? A simple matter of better materials science? A more extreme taper toward the blade tips?
Thanks for the look around. They have a lot going into this project. They're a pretty creative group. Hopefully, the aircraft has continued success and finds a market. Sometimes, that's the hardest part. All the best.
No offense to anyone but I just cannot imagine Scott getting along with Elon at all - and I'm also pretty sure ELon wouldn't allow a tour of Starbase without being in charge.
Yes, great tour, and lovely shots around the factory, but _please_ no more walking down corridor with unstabilized camera timelapses. That opening sequence was short, but painful.
Imagine learning the controls of a new aircraft with one of the aircraft's creators clinging to the outside of the cockpit while explaining how everything works
I went to a test flight for Joby a couple of years ago. They're in the same area and pretty interesting set up. The aircrafts pretty remarkable to see flying as its almost silent.
Wow what a great video. I felt like I was right there with Scott on that tour. The whole battery manufacturing process is fascinating. So much quality control and redundancy. Top notch.
I need this asap. If you want to fly out of LAX, the last 30 miles to airport take from 1-3 hours depending on how lucky you are Getting on one of these and skipping that last 30 miles and covering it in 15 minutes walking directly into the airport gate area will be amazing. NYC airports are even worse when it comes to surface traffic around airports
The vision for evtols is to be able to fly directly into an Airport vertiport. Your tsa/check-in would happen at either the originating vertiport, or at the direct airport vertiport.
1. Hats off to Tom Muniz and Archer for the openness and willingness to share here. 2. Again, I am really enjoying this style of content from you Scott! The slightly "nerdy" awkward interview style really hits home with myself and I imagine much of your audience. Paired with the added voice over when you want to add some more detail. So cool. Keep up the great work @ScottManley
Thanks for the cool video. Nice to see a firm willing to make the investment to type certify a new aircraft (there is a reason people still fly aircraft that were type certified more than 60 years ago!)
Your observation about controlling six degrees of freedom with four axes was spot on. I would have expected them to use rudder pedals and separate altitude translation control. They need to appeal to existing pilots without too much counterintuitive behaviour required.
I think it makes sense if you consider that some of those 6 axis you shouldn't be directly controlling anyways (depending on which phase of flight), that's the job of the fly by wire. For example: In hover flight, you shouldn't be controlling the pitch and roll directly, you have yaw and 3 translation axis only (total of 4), and the fly by wire does the pitch and roll. And in forward flight, you have pitch, roll, yaw and power only, like a normal fixed wing aircraft, so you shouldn't be able to touch the translation controls anyways, just like how you don't have translation controls on a fixed wing.
@@kukuc96 spot on. Only 4 DOF required in each phase with some overlap in transition. Maybe single stick with rudder control and throttle could do this. Two sidesricks which partly change function seems more difficult than necessary.
I REALLY dislike this control scheme. Different movement characteristics based on a button press for the same muscle motions just seems like it's asking for disaster in a task saturated environment. Machine control should require so little thought as to be invisible under all conditions once you're adapted to it, because in an emergency, you won't have the brainpower available to figure it out. A trim button installed upside down is almost impossible for a pilot to correct for because the muscle memory is just so strong. I've operated a bunch of different kinds of equipment IRL and the first thing I would do is throw that switching mode stuff out the window. Your brain MUST have muscle movement mean the same thing every time, or it WILL make mistakes.
You'll still need a pilot's license to fly it, which is the reason all the previous flying cars failed. Those are hard to get, and very expensive to try.
@@Andy-oc3ew Look at Molt Taylor's design in the 1980s that used a Honda Civic CRX with strap-on wings. It was certainly not a crap car. The plane was never built though, for the same old reason.
@@beenaplumber8379 I can’t find anything about this car / plane. But the issues will always be the same, compromises have to be made on both sides of the vehicle. You will always be better off buying a car and a plane rather than trying to combine the two. Any clever engineering that could combine the two functions in any acceptable way would result in far higher costs than just buying a separate car and plane. Any imagined freedom of having a car that could fly would quickly go out of the window as any flight plans would need to be registered before take off and you would be very limited as to what you could use as a runway.
It’s a very interesting design. I do hope they rethink the fly-by-wire system a little, I feel like the issue with having an system compensate automatically is that if it’s in fact a sensor that fails it could be a VERY bad situation unless there is an incredibly efficient way to notify the pilot that this is taking place and how exactly the system is trying to compensate. Fly-by-wire of course is likely what enables this to work well at all but it’ll always make me worry when interfacing the pilot as a fault protection mechanism isn’t given as much time as the automation. The LAST thing you want is the system to suddenly decide the yaw is off even though it isn’t and then implement an unnoticeable or unoverridable ‘correction’ mid-flight. Mind you I have to assume they have a handle on that but…I also assumed Boing did too.
I was also thinking that changing what the controls do based on speed seems like a bad idea- I've seen enough of those crash investigation videos to know that it's disastrous when a plane behaves differently from how the pilot's muscle memory expects it to behave.
@@amoliski I posted your exact same point elsewhere. Muscle memory having different actions based on a button switch is a *terrible* idea. Whichever engineer thought it was a good idea has obviously never operated heavy machinery.
I’m loving all the in-depth looks at these aerospace startups you have done lately 👍 (Probably a crappy way of describing them but I hope folks get the drift!)
This will never make sense economically and I agree that they're exactly like Tesla in the sense that they make exaggerated claims on which they will never be able to deliver.
@firstnamelastname4959 Thing is, everyone gives tesla shit, but they popularized the electric car, leading to more manufacturers to make as good or better electric cars. Now you can see them all over the place, and as that demand grows, so does the money and research into the area, including better battery tech, charging times, etc. Soon the downsides of electric cars will be so small that there won't be many needs to buy a gas car for the average person. And so while this might seem like a bad idea for now with very niche uses, if it's successful just enough to make other companies look into the topic of EVTOLS then the same can be said for this. Most things never start off infinitely successful, it usually takes a few looking into it, creating products, failing, until all the research and tech put into it eventually makes it a viable option. The future never happens immediately, it takes time and money.
@@SynthDark While you make a lot of sense, if we look at the bigger picture of general mobility, the future can happen only after science discovers a safe and very dense energy storage. That's it. I've never heard about any such discoveries yet. There is only speculation so far. Once we have that, the engineers can start creating really revolutionary designs in transportation. I'm not saying there will be no incremental progress until that point, but let's be realistic - the problem isn't with battery technology, it's deeper as we don't know how can a lot more energy be packed into a unit of volume. Even theoretically.
@@Wolf-Spirit_Alpha-SigmaHydrogen and fossil fuels are pretty energy dense and can be created synthetically. Once you have hydrogen you can easily create basically any synthetic fuel. Though after that process you've spent quite a bit of energy already. 😅
@@rkan2 Hydrogen has a low volumetric energy density. Even in its liquid form, which is so hard to achieve and maintain. I wish that wasn't the case, but it is. As for synthetic fuels, well, at least there is a way to produce better fuels, but yeah, a lot of energy will be wasted in that process. All this to say, we are uncharacteristically screwed, as a species. We can't rely on fossil fuels forever and yet, we don't have a good energy sources or should I say, 'mediums'. To be frank, it seems weird. We can produce a lot of energy but we can't store it in a good package? Is this some sort of a video game where levels get progressively harder?
A sport/acrobatics mode on that could pull some pretty crazy stunts if the fly by wire wasn't so locked down. I'm sure it's not a priority, but it'll be fun when somebody decides to actually see what this sort of airfame can do for an airshow.
Full aerobatics routine would give you 5 to 10 mins of flight time before the batteries ran out. You can see it now on the ground with electric hyper cars - full throttle and the batteries last 10% of the cruise time.
@@zorbakaput8537 Still, it might be a good idea to have that mode as an option in case abrupt maneuvering is necessary to avoid traffic or other unexpected issues. I don't like the idea of limiting pilot control to what the manufacturer considers reasonable.
@@beenaplumber8379thats essentially already what any modern airliner design does. there's limits to what the software will allow the pilot to do, because it knows best. ...see "MCAS" /s
So many of these startups focus on the tech and ignore safety or practicality. I’m amazed how much thought archer has put into real life flying and safety. Making sure the batteries survive high impact is great. So many people die from the fire of a crash vs the initial impact so if the batteries don’t ignite, that’s huge. Also having multiple power busses is huge! Also having the motors setup so they can lose one part but still operate with degraded performance is also huge. I’d probably be willing to fly on one of their planes and I’d never say that about any of the other VTOL’s out there
This finally looks like an EVTOL aircraft that might have a practical use. Tom was great, knowledgeable without the salesman angle. Nice that they gave you decent access to the production & testing area. Fascinating stuff; I'll look forward to a revisit then Scott, when you get to fly the thing for real. Flaky camera-work aside, this was excellent - thank you.
I bought 100 shares of Archer Aviation about a year ago. I'm 74, so I'm mostly an income investor, but I will occasionally buy 100 shares of selected start-ups, just to follow technology that I find interesting. Recently, I have been selling short expiration date, $5 put options on competitor Joby Aviation. I want to buy 100 shares, but want to pay less than $5/share.
Hello, it's Scott Manley here. Today I am in the garbage compactor on the Death Star. . . Hello, it's Scott Manley here. Today I am standing below the Saturn V at T minus 20 seconds. . . .
Scott, good report. Also: an even more likely first market than those in the U.S. “who have more money than time” are higher-density areas like Japan, where there are fewer airports and noise is even a bigger issue. - Dave Huntsman
Really looking forward to flying this craft myself in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 next month! Saw a great preview of this in their dev stream last night so great timing!
I would've loved if you could ask them why they decided on a 12 engine layout. My guess is that its either from power density of the size of "engine" or something to do with redundancy.
The fundamental problem of VTOLs is that you want a giant, helicopter-sized rotor for hovering but a regular propeller-sized ones for forward flight. Splitting up the swept area of a helicopter rotor into lots of smaller props means you can switch off the rear motors in forward flight, which solves part of the problem. Also if you only have two rotors (like the V-22) they have to be so big that they can't be horizontal when you're on the ground. I suspect that lots of small motors also makes the thermal engineering much easier, as they have a higher surface area to volume ratio.
Fantastic walkthrough Scott, keep em coming! I’m amazed that the battery tech is still using individual cells wired in parallel and series. The weight for each cell can must be considerable. Surely there is a better way to do this.
As a powerchair user, one of these would make a fabulous wheelchair accessible vehicle, and while adapting a car to work using the low power inputs from my dying muscles is really difficult to do and expensive because modern cars are predicated on your being able to put large forces into steering and braking, the Midnight might have been designed around someone like me! Adapted cars are full of systems that are drastically altered and prone to failures which prevent me from driving, but a Midnight in stock configuration would be accessible to me and therefore no more failure prone than any other Midnight. Cost might be more of an issue however! Thanks Scott, I really enjoyed this.
I think we can safely say that anything involving operational process and safety systems was done in the worst possible way by OceanGate. When I saw the Coast Guard inquiry and heard that they were logging their position by hand onto paper and then transcribing into Excel spreadsheets to calculate position fixes, it blew my mind.
Scott’s like a kid in a candy store. This was super interesting! I can’t wait until this technology is fully proven out, tested and safe for people to fly in. So cool 😎 😊
So interesting to see the approach to redundancy, eg. two separate windings in a motor. This is an exciting aircraft obviously made with care. With all the new smaller electric airframes being developed I wonder what the skies will look like in ten years.
Very standard in aviation. Remember piston engines in aircraft have dual magnetos for the same very reason. You lose a bit of power but the engine is still running. Same thing with independent control systems like hydraulics.
One of the issues not addressed here will be the development of an advanced air traffic control system that can coordinate and sequence all of these VTOLs to keep them separated in flight. During rush hour if everyone needs to fly to the airport at the same time there will be a requirement for automated systems that are able to handle these high traffic loads to make point to point travel possible and safe.
@@bernieschiff5919 I can imagine problems with this due to the lower energy capacities if the need to loiter during peak times goes up. Planes often have ample fuel to loiter for considerable time.
@@bernieschiff5919 Special class B corridors (like VFR corridors) where they slow down and maintain separation without radar service, maybe using vehicle-to-vehicle systems? That would require no changes from ATC if this becomes a thing, like an air taxi to the main airport.
Those safety features that won't let you slow down, roll, etc... What happens when multiple sensors fail? 737MAX vibes listening to the part about not being allowed to stall.
@@scottmanley if you do go please ask "how much of a load can it lift and how far can it carry that load"? "Has it ever done that"? "When will you show proof"? If thet just say its designed to do something ask has it ever done that again.
A great video focusing solely on the tech. I have been watching advancements in the field and this looks like a winner with potential. It has the advantage of a helicopter coupled with the efficiency of fixed wing aircraft.
I hope you see this Scott, very offtopic. Searched but no luck.. do you have a video on nav balls specificly? I get lost on advanced spaceflight FDAI's 😬
Man! I love these new Scott Manley goes somewhere and talks to people videos ❤ Please 🥺🙏 keep them coming 😊. Looks like you've even hired a pro cameraman 👍
Cameraman not doing the best job, but I actually like to see more in this format. Scott looks very natural interviewing in this style, he should have a cameraman more often.
Have you looked into BETA? They are regularly flying with people on board. I would be interested to see you tour their facility. I could get you in there if you were interested.
I could see a good market for this being air-ambulance services. Able to land vertically at both the hospital and on location, while still traveling fast and efficiently between, with a decent sized cabin.
0:22 that awkward greeting 🤣and looking the overlaid aircraft 😃. Also it caught my attention that he says "yah" for yaw (8:26). Great video as usual, thanks.
Presumably it’s more efficient to be used as STOL than VTOL? Is that how they’ll actually end up using it. Also the rear rotors are spinning when it’s in level flight -isn’t that parasitic drag? Why don’t they stow them fore aft? Good vid
My guess is that the 30 seconds of STOL flight out of a 30-minute flight time doesn't really make much difference to the total power usage, but it does make a lot of difference to the convenience.
@@waynerussell6401 It's not traditional windmilling. The airflow is largely in the plane of the lift prop discs. Certainly not 0 drag, but also probably some lift (like an autogyro). And any stowing mechanism is even more complexity that can fail.
I've watched phone batteries explode if a nail is driven through it. What would happen if the plane had a rough landing and the cell pack was punctured? Does the whole thing explode?
Also true that modern battery technology, like the BYD Blade Battery, is very fire resistant and can withstand being punctured. BYD has a video on YT demonstrating a nail penetration. Virtually no loss of power and no combustion.
Punctured lithium-ion batteries burn more violently than punctured diesel tanks but nothing like aviation fuel. (Still pretty bad because the fire reacts 🤓 badly if dowsed with water)
They don't explode, just shoot a torch of burning hydrogen in a random direction. And this doesn't happen as often as advertised. I tried my best to make a LiPo battery catch fire: pierced them, burned them, shot them, overcharged them or "charged" with 2500v transformer with 0% success rate, the only thing that did catch fire was a 2500V transformer.
Just started watching, bur can't help myself to notice that Scott very often asks such detailed and knowledgeable questions that the only answers are "Yep".
"Scott, I've just picked up a fault in the AAE-35 unit. It's going to go 100% failure in within 72 hours." Hal, I'm feeling a wee bit peckish, would you make a sandwich for me? "I'm sorry Scott, I'm afraid I can't do that."
@@kukuc96 Since they seem to be 2-bladed, they could still reduce drag by rotating the propellers so the tips are aligned with the airflow direction, no?
@@tiagotiagot If they had positional control on them, but I don't think they do. It doesn't serve any other purpose, and they probably figured out how much drag the windmilling is and decided it's not significant enough to design any mitigation to it. Otherwise it would be folding, or variable pitch, or something else.
He said they didn't want the extra weight of dedicated engines for thrust forward, but they have a bunch of dedicated engines for upward thrust. I'm sure there's a good reason they didn't just make the engines on the back the same as the front ones, just pointing down first.
The tilting mechanism adds weight and complexity as well. He said they already have more the enough power to cruise with just the front six engines, there's just no need to tilt the rear ones.
In vertical flight you need more power. In forward flight the wing is producing lift and the front moters can run at lower power for thrust only. Also multiple motors are needed to maintain balance in an engine out situation while in vertical flight.
Thanks for dropping by to check out our flight simulator and manufacturing facility. We can't wait to have you back to see a flight test soon!
Can you answer something though? You say in the interview that you tilt the "engines" to eliminate other, take off and landing only engines, BUT IN THE NEXT SENTENCE YOU SAY "here are our engines just for taking off and landing" It doesn't really make sense, no?
Also, sure, you have enough battery packs to "tolerate" failures, but you guys know what happens when GIANT battery packs fail right? Have you tested the insulators ability to eat up a multi cell failure in the same area?
@@ArcherAviation I first heard about you guys when Trent Palmer toured your facility a couple years ago. You've made a lot of progress since then. Hopefully you can get a certified aircraft taking passengers soon.
@@poiu477 It’s simple: They need 12 engines for hovering and 6 engines for forward flight. If these were all either vertical or horizontal, you would need 18 engines. By tilting 6 of them, you need only 12 in total.
@@germansnowman All that is true, based on their current "engine" design, but that doesn't really answer the question.
What a refreshing unrehearsed, non-PR style greeting - the kind that you get from someone who is there for the product, not just to sell it. Awesome stuff.
You mean poor interpersonal communication skills?
Kind of reminds me of that Mitchell and Webb look sketch where they are filming a home renovation show: the host walks up to the door and knocks and the guy is like "why did you knock on my door? I've already said hello. The cameramen came in and put a microphone on me, remember?"
As a kid who grew up watching scott manley and is now pursuing a masters degree focusing on vtol and rotor dynamics this is the perfect full circle moment
That is so cool bro happy that you are doing something you love. I'm getting my education back on track at the moment, myself! 😊
“Full circle” and “rotor” together… 🙌
As a kid who grew up reading Janes All The World Aircraft in the 60's, I saw too many of these concept-planes/choppers/etc. eventually come to nothing. Hiller's flying platform, Custer's channel-wing, all had their look-and-feel vibe that this one has.
The more _conventional_ the airframe appeared and behaved the more likely it would become successful. The exceptions were very rare.
@@Shazprime congrats to you! Keep pursing knowledge and good luck!
Not doing vtol and rotor but also master in AE and Scott has been a great motivator during all this time. Great to hear others are also in a similar situation. Scott, your channel is awesome and motivates us all.
I love these factory walk-throughs. Scott would be the perfect industrial spy, he digs right into the details and the parameters any the hows and whys, really engaging to watch.
Funny you should say that... We use him to spy for us all the time. lol jk
I guess people like to invite him because he actually understands what he is told 😅 plus now in relation to anything aviation, he's got his PPL.
I see this kind of stuff all the time. Being an automation FSE means being in factories of all types. Everything from packaging, manufacturing, and food production/processing. It's absolutely fascinating, and one of the reasons i really like my job. Every place is just a little bit (or sometimes a LOT) different than the last.
I can and have just stood and watched a machine work, because all the fiddly bits moving in concert is mesmerizing.
Thank you Scott. This is the best presentation I have seen about where EPs (Electric Planes) are in the development cycle. No marketing types blathering about ROI or tax benefits. Just solid technical information without any BS. Excellent. I've hung up my David Clarks now, but would love to be able to fly again in a personal EP.
This is sooo detailed, really a treat for the mind! I hope more cool companies do open tours like these.
Fascinating CTO. Unlike most, he seems to actually know what his company does.
those propeller blades have wingtip devices on them to reducte the vortices! neat.
Yes I noticed that too. Wings have winglets so maybe these should be called bladelets?
@@Gribbo9999
And little blades upon 'em.
And so on ad infinitum.
fractal propellers.
The concept has been around for some time now, they tried them on GA aircraft and were unironically called Q-tip props. They're still around on some aircraft today, but didn't deliver near the performance or quieter operation that they promised. There was a measurable improvement, but marginal, unfortunately. The blade tip was overly simplistic and made presumably with a vague understanding winglet aerodynamics, so it fell short of its potential. We could theoretically design a much better blade tip modeling them after the slight upward winglet designs seen on modern air racers, but scimitar shaped blades are the better option when it comes to efficiency and sound. Scimitar blades are analogous to what swept wings did for early jet aircraft, allowing them to fly closer to transonic and supersonic regimes with less compressibility and retaining good lift with transonic shockwave formation. The curved leading edge when looked at in a radial perspective delays shock formation to a higher airspeed, so the prop can be longer without suffering from shockwave formation that kills lift and robs power at higher speeds (really the limiting factor in the top speed of racing aircraft). It can be seen best on expensive/big aircraft with turbine engines running more than five blades, an example being the most recent 8 bladed prop on the C-130. You can see the same design on some newer helicopter rotors as well, the AH-64 Apache being a noteworthy example. Eurocopter made a pretty radical design a while back with great results (you can read more about it by searching "Blue Edge Rotor"). The combination of a scimitar and a blade tip similar to the Blue Edge would be an absolutely fantastic prop if realized.
@@-danRjust remember that it's turtles all the way down
@@Skinflaps_Meatslapper I'd imagine the engineering on scimitar blades gets far more complex when varying the pitch. I've seen them on the ATR-72s & elsewhere, but I've never understood how they handled that. Even with small variations in pitch, the outer part of the blades would seem to capture far, far more air than the inner part, leading to a very uneven distribution of thrust force along the blade, far more than on a straight blade. I'd think that would cause quite a bit more fatigue near the prop hub due to the blades torquing forward from that effect, and torquing aft during reverse thrust. Do you know how this was addressed? A simple matter of better materials science? A more extreme taper toward the blade tips?
When your guide was talking about keeping things in house he missed a great vertical pun opportunity.
Genius tier. 👍
Thanks for the look around. They have a lot going into this project. They're a pretty creative group. Hopefully, the aircraft has continued success and finds a market. Sometimes, that's the hardest part. All the best.
love seeing these interview/company tour style videos! keep it up!
maybe starbase tour at some point?^^
Oh my god that would be so epic!
No offense to anyone but I just cannot imagine Scott getting along with Elon at all - and I'm also pretty sure ELon wouldn't allow a tour of Starbase without being in charge.
@@BikoFactory that is true..
It is so cool to see our guy in there being such a capable aviator.
Like the video. Small suggestion: some camera stabilization. I'm excited to see more of these!
Yes, great tour, and lovely shots around the factory, but _please_ no more walking down corridor with unstabilized camera timelapses. That opening sequence was short, but painful.
Imagine learning the controls of a new aircraft with one of the aircraft's creators clinging to the outside of the cockpit while explaining how everything works
Get in,
Sit down,
Shut up,
And hold on!
Scream, if you wanna go faster!!!
I went to a test flight for Joby a couple of years ago. They're in the same area and pretty interesting set up. The aircrafts pretty remarkable to see flying as its almost silent.
Thanks!
Scott Manley definitely deserves personal tours at SpaceX and Blue Origin as well.
Probably ask much better questions than Tim Dodd
Scott is the man! He should absolutely tour those sites!
@@Toefoo100Ol' Timmy is learning on the job lol
naaahhh, he didn't say "That's insane" a single time. Disqualifies him.
Bonus if those tours would be with engineers who work full time at those companies.
Awesome production process and EVTOL tech, Archer Aviation, may you have great success! Thanks for the tour and flight sim Scott and Tom!
Excellent video. Two things I would've liked to have known: how well does it "glide" and how much drag do the rear props generate in forward flight?
Wow what a great video. I felt like I was right there with Scott on that tour. The whole battery manufacturing process is fascinating. So much quality control and redundancy. Top notch.
I need this asap. If you want to fly out of LAX, the last 30 miles to airport take from 1-3 hours depending on how lucky you are Getting on one of these and skipping that last 30 miles and covering it in 15 minutes walking directly into the airport gate area will be amazing. NYC airports are even worse when it comes to surface traffic around airports
The vision for evtols is to be able to fly directly into an Airport vertiport. Your tsa/check-in would happen at either the originating vertiport, or at the direct airport vertiport.
Well as soon as more than 50 people have the same idea you will all be waiting in your vtol craft for a pad to land on lol
What you need is a train
Just wanted to say the 2 recent tour/interviews have been amazing! Thoroughly enjoyed, and I hope we get to see more.
1. Hats off to Tom Muniz and Archer for the openness and willingness to share here.
2. Again, I am really enjoying this style of content from you Scott! The slightly "nerdy" awkward interview style really hits home with myself and I imagine much of your audience. Paired with the added voice over when you want to add some more detail. So cool.
Keep up the great work @ScottManley
There's a CTO who knows what he's talking about! That's a fascinating aircraft and I wish them every success 👍
And immediately deferred to someone else the second he was asked a question he wasn't sure about, rather than blustering through.
Thanks for the cool video. Nice to see a firm willing to make the investment to type certify a new aircraft (there is a reason people still fly aircraft that were type certified more than 60 years ago!)
Science nerd, gamer and pilot. Perfect person to give the interview/tour. Very nice video!
So fun to get to take a look at this impressive machine!
Your observation about controlling six degrees of freedom with four axes was spot on. I would have expected them to use rudder pedals and separate altitude translation control. They need to appeal to existing pilots without too much counterintuitive behaviour required.
mode switching as opposed to a twist axis on the stick threw me off, seems like extra workload to me but idk i just play video games 😂
would the FAA even allow such a control scheme?
I think it makes sense if you consider that some of those 6 axis you shouldn't be directly controlling anyways (depending on which phase of flight), that's the job of the fly by wire.
For example: In hover flight, you shouldn't be controlling the pitch and roll directly, you have yaw and 3 translation axis only (total of 4), and the fly by wire does the pitch and roll.
And in forward flight, you have pitch, roll, yaw and power only, like a normal fixed wing aircraft, so you shouldn't be able to touch the translation controls anyways, just like how you don't have translation controls on a fixed wing.
@@kukuc96 spot on. Only 4 DOF required in each phase with some overlap in transition. Maybe single stick with rudder control and throttle could do this. Two sidesricks which partly change function seems more difficult than necessary.
I REALLY dislike this control scheme. Different movement characteristics based on a button press for the same muscle motions just seems like it's asking for disaster in a task saturated environment. Machine control should require so little thought as to be invisible under all conditions once you're adapted to it, because in an emergency, you won't have the brainpower available to figure it out.
A trim button installed upside down is almost impossible for a pilot to correct for because the muscle memory is just so strong.
I've operated a bunch of different kinds of equipment IRL and the first thing I would do is throw that switching mode stuff out the window. Your brain MUST have muscle movement mean the same thing every time, or it WILL make mistakes.
Finally! Those are the air car's they promised us! 🥳
You'll still need a pilot's license to fly it, which is the reason all the previous flying cars failed. Those are hard to get, and very expensive to try.
@@beenaplumber8379the reason why flying cars have always failed is because they were simultaneously crap cars and crap planes.
@@Andy-oc3ew Look at Molt Taylor's design in the 1980s that used a Honda Civic CRX with strap-on wings. It was certainly not a crap car. The plane was never built though, for the same old reason.
@@beenaplumber8379 I can’t find anything about this car / plane. But the issues will always be the same, compromises have to be made on both sides of the vehicle. You will always be better off buying a car and a plane rather than trying to combine the two. Any clever engineering that could combine the two functions in any acceptable way would result in far higher costs than just buying a separate car and plane. Any imagined freedom of having a car that could fly would quickly go out of the window as any flight plans would need to be registered before take off and you would be very limited as to what you could use as a runway.
Flying cars are a pipe dream
This is so cool to see! They were just at my uni yesterday to present for future pilots!
San Jose! Thats my home town, born, raised for 25 years.
You da man Scott!
love the video and Scott's excitement with all this :D
I was fascinated by the line, "the aircraft is always on autopilot; you're just giving it inputs." 😊
It’s a very interesting design. I do hope they rethink the fly-by-wire system a little, I feel like the issue with having an system compensate automatically is that if it’s in fact a sensor that fails it could be a VERY bad situation unless there is an incredibly efficient way to notify the pilot that this is taking place and how exactly the system is trying to compensate. Fly-by-wire of course is likely what enables this to work well at all but it’ll always make me worry when interfacing the pilot as a fault protection mechanism isn’t given as much time as the automation. The LAST thing you want is the system to suddenly decide the yaw is off even though it isn’t and then implement an unnoticeable or unoverridable ‘correction’ mid-flight. Mind you I have to assume they have a handle on that but…I also assumed Boing did too.
Not just the sensor regime but something with this level of automation makes smoke in the cabin all the more terrifying.
I was also thinking that changing what the controls do based on speed seems like a bad idea- I've seen enough of those crash investigation videos to know that it's disastrous when a plane behaves differently from how the pilot's muscle memory expects it to behave.
@@amoliski I posted your exact same point elsewhere. Muscle memory having different actions based on a button switch is a *terrible* idea. Whichever engineer thought it was a good idea has obviously never operated heavy machinery.
I really like these new aviation and startup focused videos Scott! Keep going
That dude was pretty transparent. Maybe I will build one having the details given. LOL. Nice job Scott...great show!
I’m loving all the in-depth looks at these aerospace startups you have done lately 👍
(Probably a crappy way of describing them but I hope folks get the drift!)
Wow. Mighty impressive engineering development. He is the Tesla of VTOLs! I hope this will make sense economically, I want to see these flying!
This will never make sense economically and I agree that they're exactly like Tesla in the sense that they make exaggerated claims on which they will never be able to deliver.
@firstnamelastname4959 Thing is, everyone gives tesla shit, but they popularized the electric car, leading to more manufacturers to make as good or better electric cars. Now you can see them all over the place, and as that demand grows, so does the money and research into the area, including better battery tech, charging times, etc. Soon the downsides of electric cars will be so small that there won't be many needs to buy a gas car for the average person.
And so while this might seem like a bad idea for now with very niche uses, if it's successful just enough to make other companies look into the topic of EVTOLS then the same can be said for this. Most things never start off infinitely successful, it usually takes a few looking into it, creating products, failing, until all the research and tech put into it eventually makes it a viable option.
The future never happens immediately, it takes time and money.
@@SynthDark While you make a lot of sense, if we look at the bigger picture of general mobility, the future can happen only after science discovers a safe and very dense energy storage. That's it. I've never heard about any such discoveries yet. There is only speculation so far. Once we have that, the engineers can start creating really revolutionary designs in transportation. I'm not saying there will be no incremental progress until that point, but let's be realistic - the problem isn't with battery technology, it's deeper as we don't know how can a lot more energy be packed into a unit of volume. Even theoretically.
@@Wolf-Spirit_Alpha-SigmaHydrogen and fossil fuels are pretty energy dense and can be created synthetically.
Once you have hydrogen you can easily create basically any synthetic fuel. Though after that process you've spent quite a bit of energy already. 😅
@@rkan2 Hydrogen has a low volumetric energy density. Even in its liquid form, which is so hard to achieve and maintain.
I wish that wasn't the case, but it is. As for synthetic fuels, well, at least there is a way to produce better fuels, but yeah, a lot of energy will be wasted in that process.
All this to say, we are uncharacteristically screwed, as a species. We can't rely on fossil fuels forever and yet, we don't have a good energy sources or should I say, 'mediums'. To be frank, it seems weird. We can produce a lot of energy but we can't store it in a good package? Is this some sort of a video game where levels get progressively harder?
Thank you Scott for taking us into this facility with you! This was really a great episode!
A sport/acrobatics mode on that could pull some pretty crazy stunts if the fly by wire wasn't so locked down. I'm sure it's not a priority, but it'll be fun when somebody decides to actually see what this sort of airfame can do for an airshow.
Or when the odd evasive maneuver is required.
Full aerobatics routine would give you 5 to 10 mins of flight time before the batteries ran out. You can see it now on the ground with electric hyper cars - full throttle and the batteries last 10% of the cruise time.
@@zorbakaput8537 Still, it might be a good idea to have that mode as an option in case abrupt maneuvering is necessary to avoid traffic or other unexpected issues. I don't like the idea of limiting pilot control to what the manufacturer considers reasonable.
@@beenaplumber8379thats essentially already what any modern airliner design does. there's limits to what the software will allow the pilot to do, because it knows best.
...see "MCAS" /s
Awesome Video...exciting times.
Scott, you are a gift to humanity. I wish we’d had more people like you.
So many of these startups focus on the tech and ignore safety or practicality. I’m amazed how much thought archer has put into real life flying and safety. Making sure the batteries survive high impact is great. So many people die from the fire of a crash vs the initial impact so if the batteries don’t ignite, that’s huge. Also having multiple power busses is huge! Also having the motors setup so they can lose one part but still operate with degraded performance is also huge. I’d probably be willing to fly on one of their planes and I’d never say that about any of the other VTOL’s out there
I subbed for the space talks, but videos like this are my favorites on the channel.
This finally looks like an EVTOL aircraft that might have a practical use. Tom was great, knowledgeable without the salesman angle. Nice that they gave you decent access to the production & testing area. Fascinating stuff; I'll look forward to a revisit then Scott, when you get to fly the thing for real. Flaky camera-work aside, this was excellent - thank you.
It brings a whole new dimension to range anxiety.
Exactly! Now it's also 'altitude anxiety'. Plus, 'I have added an autopilot into your autopilot, so you can't do much if it all malfunctions' anxiety.
wow this seems like an awesome company
Last time I was this early Superheavy was called BFR
I'm even older then, I still remember the Interplanetary Transport System
@@leoshorkI'm even older since I still remember red dragon
@@galactic-guy You're all babies. I watched Neil Armstrong climb down the ladder on live television.
Super Heavy was never called BFR. The whole system was. Booster was BFB and the ship was BFS.
@@galactic-guy ok I'm not that old then lol
That was pretty cool, thanks Scott!
I did not expect to see Archer here. I have a bunch invested. This is going to be HUGE!
I bought 100 shares of Archer Aviation about a year ago. I'm 74, so I'm mostly an income investor, but I will occasionally buy 100 shares of selected start-ups, just to follow technology that I find interesting. Recently, I have been selling short expiration date, $5 put options on competitor Joby Aviation. I want to buy 100 shares, but want to pay less than $5/share.
What a great video Scott, thoroughly enjoyed it!
I'd love to see you talk w/ BETA Technologies - another all-electric aircraft developer/manufacturer.
Gives you a great perspective on the complexity of creating this aircraft.
Hello, it's Scott Manley here. Today I am in the garbage compactor on the Death Star. . .
Hello, it's Scott Manley here. Today I am standing below the Saturn V at T minus 20 seconds. . . .
Great show, Scott!!!
Scott, good report. Also: an even more likely first market than those in the U.S. “who have more money than time” are higher-density areas like Japan, where there are fewer airports and noise is even a bigger issue. - Dave Huntsman
Really looking forward to flying this craft myself in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 next month! Saw a great preview of this in their dev stream last night so great timing!
I would've loved if you could ask them why they decided on a 12 engine layout. My guess is that its either from power density of the size of "engine" or something to do with redundancy.
More motors means each motor can spin slower, reducing noise and being more efficient.
@@PaulCHaSmaller props are not more efficient and u forgot that drag exists.
The fundamental problem of VTOLs is that you want a giant, helicopter-sized rotor for hovering but a regular propeller-sized ones for forward flight. Splitting up the swept area of a helicopter rotor into lots of smaller props means you can switch off the rear motors in forward flight, which solves part of the problem. Also if you only have two rotors (like the V-22) they have to be so big that they can't be horizontal when you're on the ground.
I suspect that lots of small motors also makes the thermal engineering much easier, as they have a higher surface area to volume ratio.
@@robertkalinic335I never mentioned props. We’re talking about the # of motors.
Fantastic walkthrough Scott, keep em coming! I’m amazed that the battery tech is still using individual cells wired in parallel and series. The weight for each cell can must be considerable. Surely there is a better way to do this.
Is this what is flying around New Jersey?
Loved detailed simulator trial (plus all the detail on the battery manufacturing)
That’s pretty rad
As a powerchair user, one of these would make a fabulous wheelchair accessible vehicle, and while adapting a car to work using the low power inputs from my dying muscles is really difficult to do and expensive because modern cars are predicated on your being able to put large forces into steering and braking, the Midnight might have been designed around someone like me! Adapted cars are full of systems that are drastically altered and prone to failures which prevent me from driving, but a Midnight in stock configuration would be accessible to me and therefore no more failure prone than any other Midnight. Cost might be more of an issue however! Thanks Scott, I really enjoyed this.
_This_ is how mission-critical and life-sustaining systems should be designed and manufactured. What a stark contrast to OceanGate.
I think we can safely say that anything involving operational process and safety systems was done in the worst possible way by OceanGate. When I saw the Coast Guard inquiry and heard that they were logging their position by hand onto paper and then transcribing into Excel spreadsheets to calculate position fixes, it blew my mind.
"damn, this nuclear reactor is so much better than Timmy's first baking soda volcano"
@@quantumblauthor7300 Except they put real humans on the latter regardless :(
@@Suppenfischeintopf "they" wasn't it one guy basically?
with tiny battery and not a lot of power i am not sure what part of this is safe. it's little better then blimp
Scott’s like a kid in a candy store. This was super interesting! I can’t wait until this technology is fully proven out, tested and safe for people to fly in. So cool 😎 😊
So interesting to see the approach to redundancy, eg. two separate windings in a motor. This is an exciting aircraft obviously made with care. With all the new smaller electric airframes being developed I wonder what the skies will look like in ten years.
Very standard in aviation. Remember piston engines in aircraft have dual magnetos for the same very reason. You lose a bit of power but the engine is still running. Same thing with independent control systems like hydraulics.
The Jetsons.
One of the issues not addressed here will be the development of an advanced air traffic control system that can coordinate and sequence all of these VTOLs to keep them separated in flight. During rush hour if everyone needs to fly to the airport at the same time there will be a requirement for automated systems that are able to handle these high traffic loads to make point to point travel possible and safe.
@@bernieschiff5919 I can imagine problems with this due to the lower energy capacities if the need to loiter during peak times goes up. Planes often have ample fuel to loiter for considerable time.
@@bernieschiff5919 Special class B corridors (like VFR corridors) where they slow down and maintain separation without radar service, maybe using vehicle-to-vehicle systems? That would require no changes from ATC if this becomes a thing, like an air taxi to the main airport.
21st century wright brothers. It’s insane. Thanks so much for this video.
Their head of certification is Eric Wright, a descendant of the Wright brothers.
@@bballnaramosTalk about legacy 😅
Those safety features that won't let you slow down, roll, etc... What happens when multiple sensors fail? 737MAX vibes listening to the part about not being allowed to stall.
35 year Multi Commercial Instrument and RC pilot. So cool. We have certainly come a long way. Really enjoyed this.
I wish I could get you a tour around my work as well. I work at the other EVTOL company in the bay area which rhymes with Moby.
You just have to ask nicely... and maybe let me fly something.
@@scottmanley I’ll have to see if I can put you in touch with someone then.
@@scottmanley if you do go please ask "how much of a load can it lift and how far can it carry that load"? "Has it ever done that"? "When will you show proof"? If thet just say its designed to do something ask has it ever done that again.
Go for Joby tour😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊
A great video focusing solely on the tech. I have been watching advancements in the field and this looks like a winner with potential. It has the advantage of a helicopter coupled with the efficiency of fixed wing aircraft.
Scott and Electric flight? That's an instalike.
This is a great series of visits at exciting companies / institutions 👍 Godspeed to Archer 🐝
Nice use of unsteady cam
yeah its pretty sickening lol
Good on Archer for not blurring a single image 🙌
Since the FAA calls them "engines", can you get a 12 engine rating after flying one of these?
Speaking of that. I wonder what type of license you would need for this? Multi-engine and rotorcraft?
Yes
Scott is becoming the Huel Howser of aerospace and I love that
I hope you see this Scott, very offtopic. Searched but no luck.. do you have a video on nav balls specificly? I get lost on advanced spaceflight FDAI's 😬
I don't! I should!
@@scottmanley oh.... was weird not finding it.. and good, thought im blind 😂 there arent to complicated but there is no good video about it
Man! I love these new Scott Manley goes somewhere and talks to people videos ❤ Please 🥺🙏 keep them coming 😊. Looks like you've even hired a pro cameraman 👍
Just tip for next time, drop the backpack 😅🙃
I'm an early investor in Archer Aviation, hopefully they pull through and are successful.
Cameraman not doing the best job, but I actually like to see more in this format. Scott looks very natural interviewing in this style, he should have a cameraman more often.
Have you looked into BETA? They are regularly flying with people on board. I would be interested to see you tour their facility. I could get you in there if you were interested.
Beta has taken a different approach regarding vertical to horizontal transition. It would be great to see him do a tour with them for a comparison
I could see a good market for this being air-ambulance services. Able to land vertically at both the hospital and on location, while still traveling fast and efficiently between, with a decent sized cabin.
Despite the disastrous camera work I found this a fascinating video. Thanks
0:22 that awkward greeting 🤣and looking the overlaid aircraft 😃. Also it caught my attention that he says "yah" for yaw (8:26). Great video as usual, thanks.
Presumably it’s more efficient to be used as STOL than VTOL? Is that how they’ll actually end up using it. Also the rear rotors are spinning when it’s in level flight -isn’t that parasitic drag? Why don’t they stow them fore aft? Good vid
A windmilling prop does create more drag than a fixed prop unless it can be feathered.
My guess is that the 30 seconds of STOL flight out of a 30-minute flight time doesn't really make much difference to the total power usage, but it does make a lot of difference to the convenience.
@@waynerussell6401 It's not traditional windmilling. The airflow is largely in the plane of the lift prop discs. Certainly not 0 drag, but also probably some lift (like an autogyro). And any stowing mechanism is even more complexity that can fail.
Pretty interesting to hear Scott PoV on the simulator as both a licensed pilot and KSP player.
Scott Manley is starting his Tom Scott arch. Cant wait for his monorail reviews. 😂
Great video Scott. I fly out of Salinas. Seen it fly once and static at the Airshow. If your ever down this way, hit me up and I'll buy you lunch.
I've watched phone batteries explode if a nail is driven through it. What would happen if the plane had a rough landing and the cell pack was punctured? Does the whole thing explode?
The CTO talks about dropping the battery packs 50 feet as part of an impact test, and of isolating each individual cell to stop chain reactions.
Also true that modern battery technology, like the BYD Blade Battery, is very fire resistant and can withstand being punctured.
BYD has a video on YT demonstrating a nail penetration. Virtually no loss of power and no combustion.
Punctured lithium-ion batteries burn more violently than punctured diesel tanks but nothing like aviation fuel. (Still pretty bad because the fire reacts 🤓 badly if dowsed with water)
They don't explode, just shoot a torch of burning hydrogen in a random direction. And this doesn't happen as often as advertised. I tried my best to make a LiPo battery catch fire: pierced them, burned them, shot them, overcharged them or "charged" with 2500v transformer with 0% success rate, the only thing that did catch fire was a 2500V transformer.
@@martinw245 And LiFePo - too low power density for aviation.
Just started watching, bur can't help myself to notice that Scott very often asks such detailed and knowledgeable questions that the only answers are "Yep".
Can it glide and/or autorotate in case of motor failure?
If you have a motor failure you have 11 other motors.
And a wing. You're a glider as well
@@scottmanley I’m imagining a scenario where power is lost to all motors
Small wing area and massive drag would mean a rapid approach speed and at steep glide angle.
this looks pretty cool :D making a fully electric VTOL is certainly quite the challange, im very impressed
Cool❤
I was delighted to see that in comparison the sole dev for vtol vr did a great job with the control system in his project on steam.
"Scott, I've just picked up a fault in the AAE-35 unit. It's going to go 100% failure in within 72 hours."
Hal, I'm feeling a wee bit peckish, would you make a sandwich for me?
"I'm sorry Scott, I'm afraid I can't do that."
Great caps and edit!!!
Do the fixed rear rotors work like on an auto-gyro during forward flight? Do they turn to the most aerodynamic angle to limit drag?
They said it's fixed pitch on those props, so no on the latter.
@@kukuc96 Since they seem to be 2-bladed, they could still reduce drag by rotating the propellers so the tips are aligned with the airflow direction, no?
@@tiagotiagot If they had positional control on them, but I don't think they do. It doesn't serve any other purpose, and they probably figured out how much drag the windmilling is and decided it's not significant enough to design any mitigation to it. Otherwise it would be folding, or variable pitch, or something else.
Really impressive setup
He said they didn't want the extra weight of dedicated engines for thrust forward, but they have a bunch of dedicated engines for upward thrust. I'm sure there's a good reason they didn't just make the engines on the back the same as the front ones, just pointing down first.
Was looking for this comment. Feel like he immediately contradicted himself there.
Having propellers pointing down in the back would be a safety hazard for passenger ingress/egress.
The tilting mechanism adds weight and complexity as well.
He said they already have more the enough power to cruise with just the front six engines, there's just no need to tilt the rear ones.
@@NoOne-ef7yu Also correct.
In vertical flight you need more power. In forward flight the wing is producing lift and the front moters can run at lower power for thrust only. Also multiple motors are needed to maintain balance in an engine out situation while in vertical flight.
Cool Scott!!! Well done! Fascinating stuff.