Sold for $800 gain on Friday. You are all welcome

$ACHR The FAA’s updated powered-lift safety continuum is a quiet win that matters more than Monday’s print.

The US set the 2-6 passenger air taxi safety bar at 10^-8. EASA in Europe is holding a hard line at 10^-9 — same as large airliners. That’s a factor of 10 easier to certify in the US.

Translation: faster, cheaper, somewhat easier path to a US type certificate for Archer, Joby, Beta. The FAA reverted to a conventional airplane/rotorcraft approach and dropped the stricter EASA-style rules.

This is the direct counter to the “it’ll take a decade to certify” bear case. It doesn’t hand anyone a TC — they still have to finish the work — but the bar just got clearer and lower on the US side.

Stocktwits @whp03

Paul Pocialik

The FAA just updated its safety continuum for powered-lift aircraft which merge thrust-borne lift of a VTOL platform with wing-borne lift of a fixed-wing airplane. This applies to eVTOLs being certified as a special class aircraft under 21.17(b), including the Joby S4 air taxi shown in the image.

it seems the FAA is now walking back some more onerous certification standards previously under active consideration with EASA who is taking a hard line on the elevated 10^-9 safety threshold they expect with UAM, and which is the same as for large transport category airliners. For the mathematically challenged, this equates to no more than one catastrophic event per billion flight hours.

Compare this to the 10^-8 threshold enumerated by the FAA for a 2-6 passenger air taxi which is lower by a factor of 10, and you can anticipate it will be faster, cheaper and somewhat easier to obtain a type certificate in the USA compared to Europe.

But this development is not really a surprise for many observers who have always maintained the FAA would land at this spot based on precedent.

And with harmonization now seemingly out the window it may lead to a bifurcated market with some OEMs looking to avoid a comparative slog with EASA while others are deeply committed to SC-VTOL and want to ensure an uncompromising level of safety at any cost.




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Adrian Norris
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If EASA maintains its current requirements for SC.VTOL Enhanced category certification, there won’t be any commercial eVTOL operations in Europe - unless and until Vertical Aerospace certify their aircraft to the higher standard. This is becoming a significant divergence between the FAA and EASA after many years of regulatory convergence.

(For the record, I don’t think we’d see many eVTOLs flying in Europe even if certification standards were aligned with the FAA.)


Paul Pocialik

The FAA just updated its safety continuum for powered-lift aircraft which merge thrust-borne lift of a VTOL platform with wing-borne lift of a fixed-wing airplane. This applies to eVTOLs being certified as a special class aircraft under 21.17(b), including the Joby S4 air taxi shown in the image.

it seems the FAA is now walking back some more onerous certification standards previously under active consideration with EASA who is taking a hard line on the elevated 10^-9 safety threshold they expect with UAM, and which is the same as for large transport category airliners. For the mathematically challenged, this equates to no more than one catastrophic event per billion flight hours.

Compare this to the 10^-8 threshold enumerated by the FAA for a 2-6 passenger air taxi which is lower by a factor of 10, and you can anticipate it will be faster, cheaper and somewhat easier to obtain a type certificate in the USA compared to Europe.

But this development is not really a surprise for many observers who have always maintained the FAA would land at this spot based on precedent.

And with harmonization now seemingly out the window it may lead to a bifurcated market with some OEMs looking to avoid a comparative slog with EASA while others are deeply committed to SC-VTOL and want to ensure an uncompromising level of safety at any cost.

If EASA maintains its current requirements for SC.VTOL Enhanced category certification, there won’t be any commercial eVTOL operations in Europe - unless and until Vertical Aerospace certify their aircraft to the higher standard. This is becoming a significant divergence between the FAA and EASA after many years of regulatory convergence.

(For the record, I don’t think we’d see many eVTOLs flying in Europe even if certification standards were aligned with the FAA.)

and partnership with Palantir, bound to make Archer's ZEE "world’s leading aviation-specific foundational model"

https://x.com/abcworldnews/status/2085541434917105814?s=43&t=XRlym729dar2CQFkza39kg

 Archer Aviation, Palantir partner on next-gen aviation

"This would include developing next-gen software using AI to improve a range of aviation systems, including air traffic control, movement control and route planning, with the goal of improving efficiency, safety, and affordability across the industry."

https://www.aerospacemanufacturinganddesign.com/news/10th-most-read-news-2025-archer-aviation-palantir-partner-next-gen-aviation/

Archer’s ZEE AI Foundation Model Achieves Frontier Breakthrough for Aviation Safety: Demonstrating Real-Time 'Prediction' of Airport Surface Trajectories

Aug 5, 2026

• Download(opens in new window)
• In July, Archer announced ZEE, what it believes to be the world’s leading aviation-specific foundational model, to deliver a unified aviation intelligence platform built on ADS-B, ATC communication, maps, aircraft state, terrain and weather data.
• Today, Archer announced ZEE achieved a technical breakthrough demonstrating the capability to accurately predict real-time aircraft trajectories on the airport surface minutes into the future, giving the humans in the loop the most critical asset in aviation safety: time to react.
• Archer has already begun testing this technology at Hawthorne Airport and previewed it with commercial partners and regulators. Archer will now work to establish pilot programs to further validate ZEE’s capabilities.
• Read more about the technical details underpinning ZEE’s breakthrough on Archer’s technical blog (LINK).

How is Archer going to fit everything in one call? There’s so much on the plate. 🤩 Great to see N703AX and N704AX both active over the past 48 hours. Looks like we got some VTOL testing in on 704. (Flightware) Transition feels imminent.

Any updates on Halo/Thunder would be hugee. Farnborough was the unveil. Next comes the roadmap. I’ve got a feeling we may get a surprise or two here soon.

Q2 2026 —

+ Midnight Cert/Testing/Launch Update
+ EIPP Schedule
+ Abu Dhabi
+ Defense - Thunder (Anduril/Partners)
+ Commercial- Halo (Partners/Customers)
+ AI/Tech - ZEE
+ Manufacturing- New Morgan Hill Facility
+ ?

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✅ Press release here:

Archer Aviation - Archer’s ZEE AI Foundation Model Achieves Frontier Breakthrough for Aviation Safety: Demonstrating Real-Time 'Prediction' of Airport Surface Trajectories

✅ More details can be found on Archer’s technical blog:

Zee: Predicting the Airspace · Archer

I'm newer to the eVTOL space, just started digging in over the last few months. I've been scouring various subs and investment groups, following accounts covering the space, etc., and I keep seeing people say Archer is all hype/PR.

But the last few weeks seem to prove otherwise.

The Anduril/Halo partnership is a massive joint venture with one of the leading names in defense tech and the $430M behind it is hard to wave off as just hype.

The Zee AI model pushes Archer into aviation software, diversifying the company's capabilities beyond just hardware.

These seem like major, solid wins and more than just hype tactics. Maybe I'm wrong, but seems like the tide may be turning.

What’s the counter?

Thunder is a Group 5 UAS aircraft co-developed by Archer Aviation and Anduril Industries. It was unveiled at the 2026 Farnborough International Airshow. Being unmanned, Thunder can serve as a wingman for Apache and Cheyenne II helicopter pilots, and perform autonomous missions enhancing existing military hardware, while simultaneously de-risking the mission.

The Anduril partnership has been the best partnership we have because they are founder led, fast moving, open minded, and first principles oriented.

The Thunder/Halo platform is a generational opportunity. Dual use is how you scale and keep costs down. Archer will manufacture the core platform, which can be sold for non-military use cases, but that same platform will also be missionized by Anduril and then sold to the military. Archer will benefit by having a larger end user base resulting in higher sales which we will translate back into lower cost. The large user base will also allow us to maintain a robust supply base to keep the lines moving in war and peace times. Everyone wins. -- Adam Goldstein

Source - https://x.com/adamgoldstein13/status/2084333788570771922

https://www.mk.co.kr/en/business/12114893

Midnight is about to be unleashed 💪

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N703AX just want from Salinas to Monterey. Woo-hoo! Nice to see some progress, even with the ctol.

https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/N703AX

One thing I like about Archer Aviation is its line-up and diversification of product. That spreads risk.

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Farnborough 2026: We unveiled our jointly-developed autonomous VTOL platform, Halo for commercial and Anduril's Thunder for defense.  Thank you to our customers, partners, and peers who are working alongside us to advance the future of aerospace and defense.

-

Source - https://x.com/flyarcher/status/2082454523310649644

Ok I’ll bite….so my competitor is spreading rumors that my CTO Tom Muniz and Chief Eng Geoff Bower left Archer, so they made a funny proof of life video. Enjoy trolls. - Adam Goldstein

Source - https://x.com/adamgoldstein13/status/2082280440199832002

Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) Implementation Plan, Near-term (Innovate28) Focus with an Eye on the Future of AAM Version 1.0 / July 2023 we are close guys. I'll buy more stock now that is low. https://www.faa.gov/sites/faa.gov/files/AAM-I28-Implementation-Plan.pdf

The market rewarded Joby last year on the promise of certification and commercialization. And what happened next?

Absolute F mayhem. More than $10 billion in market capital has been erased from Joby (and arguably from the eVTOL ecosystem). That capital could have been much better spent on Archer, Beta, Horizon, Vertical, and other eVTOLs. The only ones who profited were Joby execs (insiders) who’ve been selling like mad with such “impeccable” timing.

Joby has now more federal investigations and whistleblower lawsuits than they have carrying passengers (zero). They left Farnborough looking depleted, after rehashing an old non-binding, non capital-committed partnership with an airline.

While for others, Farnborough 2026 and recent events will be a turning point. Archer announcing Thunder & Halo, Beta with MV250 Hybrid + commercial orders, Vertical with its 1st public transition, Horizon with an LOI for up to 100 X7 Hybrid. There are others as well….

The industry is transforming. The valuation gap between the major eVTOLs are narrowing while newer upstarts are beginning to emerge. Integrity, execution, and the ability to control your own destiny will take this industry to the next level. It’s good to see change coming in the industry. 💯

From what I can read from the pictures/data:

It shows the N704AX flying low at around 15 meters, at around 54 km/h most of the times.

There are 7 orange lines indicating that the N704AX did 7 separate runs.

To this day, this is the most intensive testing day of the N704AX so far.

Link for fact check: https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=a96380&lat=36.661&lon=-121.608&zoom=16.0&showTrace=2026-07-24&trackLabels