California-based air taxi developer Archer Aviation has introduced Halo, a hybrid-electric unpiloted aircraft built to fly heavy cargo into locations with no runway.
The company confirmed the aircraft at Farnborough International Airshow two days after defence technology company Anduril showed off Thunder, an armed version of the same airframe designed for military use.
Archer and Anduril describe the two aircraft as variants of a single dual-use platform, sharing the same structure, hybrid powertrain and core flight systems with a variable payload depending on the mission.
Halo has no cockpit and no pilot, a decision Archer says was built into the aircraft from the outset. In an on-site interview at Farnborough Airshow, Chief Technology Officer Tom Muniz told Zag Daily that the nuance lies in how autonomy itself is defined.
“It ranges from relatively basic automated flight paths through to very sophisticated autonomous behaviours,” Muniz said, adding that Halo would move through that range gradually, in step with the regulatory approvals needed for each stage.
Muniz said Halo bears little resemblance to Midnight, Archer’s all-electric passenger aircraft, which is designed to carry four people around 100km.
“It’s a very different aircraft,” he added, explaining that the performance targets were different enough that Archer built an entirely new platform instead of adapting Midnight.
Halo is intended to “fly further, at higher speed, carrying substantially more weight,” said Muniz. That reach, he added, comes from a turboshaft engine working alongside Halo’s electric propulsion system, generating power to extend its range beyond what a battery-only aircraft could manage.
Precisely how far Halo can fly, or how much it can carry, Archer would not share. Muniz said both Archer and Anduril intend to keep those figures confidential.
The company named Marubeni Aerospace, a Japanese aviation trading business and subsidiary of Marubeni Corporation, as Halo’s first launch partner. Archer is pitching Halo to other operators needing runway-independent access, including offshore energy resupply, time-sensitive freight and medical or disaster relief cargo.
The announcement follows Anduril’s unveiling of Thunder earlier this week, a Group 5 autonomous attack rotorcraft intended to fly alongside crewed helicopters such as the Apache.
Archer shares rose by around 20% following that announcement. Muniz said the defence relationship, which began in 2024, had not changed how Archer designs aircraft.
“This partnership hasn’t really changed our culture, our focus or the way we develop aircraft,” he said, adding that Archer’s role was limited to the aircraft itself while Anduril integrated the systems specific to military missions.
Archer’s move fits a pattern taking hold across the eVTOL industry as manufacturers weigh defence and logistics contracts against the slower path to passenger certification. Bristol-based eVTOL developer Vertical Aerospace signed its own autonomy partnership with Near Earth Autonomy this week, part of a wider push into a hybrid-electric cargo and defence version of its Valo aircraft alongside its passenger model.
