FARNBOROUGH, England--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jul 22, 2026--
Archer Aviation (NYSE: ACHR) today announced Halo, the commercial variant of a jointly-developed dual-use platform built to serve both defense and commercial applications. Anduril unveiled Thunder, the defense variant of the platform, on Monday at the Farnborough International Airshow. The two variants share the same airframe, hybrid powertrain and core systems, with configurable payload depending on mission requirements.
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Archer Technology Stack
This new dual-use autonomous VTOL aircraft platform, highlighted by its Halo (commercial) and Thunder (defense) variants, builds on eight years of eVTOL development and flight testing by Archer. It features a clean-sheet design, bringing the commercial VTOL sector's rapid innovation in electric propulsion and rotor design directly into a performance-optimized configuration.
At the core of the platform is innovation in hybrid-electric powertrain and optimum-speed tiltrotors:
The tiltrotor configuration, series hybrid-electric powertrain, and rotor technology provides this platform with the range necessary to support global self-deployment. Alternatively, the aircraft can be packed into a standard shipping container for transport by air, road, rail, or sea, offering the multi-modal transport logistics required to reach where it needs to be.
Designed for low-cost, high-volume production using commercial supply chains, the platform behind Halo and Thunder is built to support broad deployment, rapid production and the scale commercial and defense markets require.
"Over the past eight years we've engineered, tested and scaled the technology this platform is built on. The powertrain, the batteries, the motors, the manufacturing. We partnered with Anduril to take all of that knowledge and build something new: a clean-sheet aircraft in a completely different class of range, speed and payload. I believe this is the most sophisticated vertical lift aircraft platform ever developed—it’s exactly what our customers need," said Adam Goldstein, Founder and CEO of Archer.
Platform Capabilities
Halo brings together capabilities no existing unmanned aircraft combines:
Commercial Opportunity
Halo arrives amid a growing need for commercial logistics to move heavy payloads long distances, fast, into places with no runway, at a fraction of the cost of legacy platforms.
Highlighting this demand, Archer announced Marubeni Aerospace Corporation as a strategic launch partner for Halo.
Marubeni Aerospace is engaged in business development in the aviation and space fields. It is a subsidiary of the aerospace and mobility arm of Marubeni Corporation, one of Japan’s largest general trading companies. It has long-standing experience as a specialized trading company in the aviation sector, representing major international aircraft and helicopter manufacturers. The partnership will focus on joint market research, use case identification and future introduction of Halo.
"Currently, even in cargo transport operations that do not require onboard crew, flights are conducted with human pilots, absorbing the cost, scheduling constraints and human exposure that come with it," said Satoru Nakagawa, President and CEO, Marubeni Aerospace Corporation. "Halo's unmanned, autonomous flight capabilities can address these challenges, and combined with its excellent range, payload capacity and VTOL capability, make it a highly suitable solution that we are pleased to introduce and support for our customers as a first strategic partner."
About Archer
Archer builds the aircraft and technologies that will define the next era of flight for aerospace.
Forward-Looking Statements and Disclaimers
This press release contains forward-looking statements regarding Archer's future business plans, expectations, and opportunities. These statements include those regarding design, target specifications and use cases of its aircraft; timing of Archer's development, commercialization, and manufacturing of its aircraft; development of its planned lines of business and opportunities; and anticipated benefits of collaborations with third parties. In addition, this press release refers to agreements that remain conditional, subject to the future execution of definitive agreements and the satisfaction of certain conditions. Such agreements may not be completed or may contain different terms than those currently contemplated. Forward-looking statements are only predictions and may differ materially from actual results due to a variety of factors. The risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from the results predicted are more fully detailed in Archer's filings made with the Securities and Exchange Commission from time to time, available at investors.archer.com and at www.sec.gov. Any forward-looking statements contained herein are based on assumptions that Archer believes to be reasonable as of the date of this press release. Archer undertakes no obligation to update these statements as a result of new information or future events.
Source: Archer Aviation
Text: ArcherIR
Pictured: Halo, the commercial variant of Anduril and Archer’s jointly-developed aircraft platform.
Pictured: Halo, the commercial variant of Archer and Anduril's jointly-developed dual-use platform built to serve both defense and commercial applications.
BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Firefighters in central Spain battled a wildfire on Wednesday that has burned over 32,000 hectares (79,000 acres) in one of the country's largest blazes on record.
The fire in rural Guadalajara comes less than two weeks after a deadly blaze devastated a small expat community in southern Spain. That small but extremely virulent fire killed 13 people, including several foreigners, in one of the southern European country's deadliest wildfires.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez on Wednesday visited the fire-ravaged area in Guadalajara, and called for a pact between political parties to fight climate change.
“Year after year we clearly see how climate change kills and destroys wealth in our communities,” Sánchez said in the village of Tamajón, located less than two hours by car northeast of Madrid. “This isn’t politics. It is science, it’s about facts.”
Some 34 villages have been evacuated in the area but there are no reported serious injuries or deaths. Over 200 firefighters were supported by land vehicles and aircraft on Wednesday.
Spain this year has already suffered 22 major forest fires, defined as a fire that burns over 500 hectares (1,235 acres.)
The Socialist leader said over 100,000 hectares (247,000 acres) had already been scorched through the first half of the year, matching the total yearly average for Spain over the last decade.
Spain’s Minister for Ecological Transition, Sara Aagesen, described the Guadalajara fire as “one of the largest in the recent history of our country” and the largest ever for the region of Castilla La Mancha.
The Guadalajara blaze is the second-largest on record in Spain’s history after some 37,000 hectares (91,000 acres) were burned last year in the northwest of the country, according to data from the ecological transition ministry, as cited by EFE news agency.
Regional authorities said firefighters supported by water-dumping aircraft had so far protected homes in all 40 villages in the burned area, 90% of which belongs to a national park. Firefighters hope to have the nearly week-old fire under control by Friday, said Emiliano García-Page, regional president of Castilla La Mancha.
Miguel Ángel Moreno, mayor of the village of Zarzuela de Jadraque, said its 100 residents were evacuated Friday, with 14 taking refuge at a Red Cross shelter.
Moreno said that the firefighters should receive as much admiration as the soccer players who won the World Cup on Sunday.
The firefighters “had to run from one side of the village to the other putting out fires,” Moreno told Spanish national television TVE. “Besides the heroes who won the World Cup, we have other heroes who remain nameless.”
Spain’s weather agency said a heat wave that began Tuesday was expected to reach its peak between Wednesday and Thursday, with temperatures pushing 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) in several inland areas and crossing 42 Celsius (108 Fahrenheit) in parts of Andalusia, in southern Spain.
Guadalajara and large areas of Spain were under alert for high temperatures.
Like many other European countries, Spain is experiencing extreme heat, which is combining with wind and limited rainfall to create ideal conditions for small wildfires to grow unchecked.
Europe is the world’s fastest-warming continent, with temperatures increasing twice as quickly as the global average since the 1980s, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.
Globally, 2025 was the third-hottest year on record, bringing severe heat waves across Europe. Scientists warn that climate change is exacerbating the frequency and intensity of heat and dryness especially in southeastern Europe, making the region more vulnerable to health impacts and wildfires.
In Sicily, firefighters said they had carried out more than 1,000 operations since Saturday and have put all the Italian island’s fire departments on double shifts to cope with the blazes.
The latest was a wildland-urban blaze in Agrigento, in central western Sicily that required the evacuation of 100 people from homes and a clinic, with 22 patients transferred to other facilities, the national service said. Firefighters were particularly concerned about an oxygen storage plant nearby.
For days, Italy’s Civil Protection agency has declared all of Sicily at the highest risk for wildfires. Winds and temperatures near or above 40C (100F) have fueled blazes from near Palermo on the northern coast to Catania in the east and now Agrigento in the west.
Greece was sweltering under what was forecast to be the last of a four-day heat wave. Temperatures were predicted to top 42 C (107 F), while several regions in southern and central Greece, including the wider Athens area, were on the highest alert level for wildfire danger.
Cyprus, meanwhile, issued a warning for high temperatures expected to reach 43 C (109 F).
In Britain, it hasn’t rained in more than a month in some areas, and much of the southern half of England is in a state of “prolonged dry weather,” one step before a drought. Thames Water, the country’s biggest water company, has banned its 10 million customers from using hoses to water lawns or wash cars starting Thursday.
France's public health agency on Wednesday said the country recorded at least 5,700 more deaths than usual during a historic heatwave last month, sharply increasing its estimates of the feared toll from record-shattering temperatures.
Public Health France said regions hit by the heat between June 17 and July 2 recorded 21,674 deaths from all causes. But without a heatwave, those same regions would have been expected to have seen far fewer deaths, or 15,910, based on statistical modeling using data from previous years, it said.
Nicole Winfield in Rome, Elena Becatoros in Athens, Menelaos Hadjicostis in Nicosia, Cyprus, Jill Lawless in London and John Leicester in Paris contributed to this report.
Smoke rises above the horizon as wildfire advances near Condemios de Arriba, Guadalajara province, Spain, Wednesday, July 22, 2026, after a wildfire scorched tens of thousands of hectares in one of Spain's largest wildfires in recent years. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
Smoke rises above the horizon as wildfire advances near Condemios de Arriba, Guadalajara province, Spain, Wednesday, July 22, 2026, after a wildfire scorched tens of thousands of hectares in one of Spain's largest wildfires in recent years. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
Forest rangers take a break before returning to work on the fire near Condemios de Arriba, Guadalajara province, Spain, Wednesday, July 22, 2026, after a wildfire scorched tens of thousands of hectares in one of Spain's largest wildfires in recent years. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
A firefighting helicopter drops water on the flames as a wildfire advances near Condemios de Arriba, Guadalajara province, Spain, Wednesday, July 22, 2026, after a wildfire scorched tens of thousands of hectares in one of Spain's largest wildfires in recent years. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
Wildfire advances near Condemios de Arriba, Guadalajara province, Spain, Wednesday, July 22, 2026, after a wildfire scorched tens of thousands of hectares in one of Spain's largest wildfires in recent years. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
Smoke rises above the horizon in Hiendelaencina, Guadalajara province, Spain, Wednesday, July 22, 2026, after a wildfire scorched tens of thousands of hectares in one of Spain's largest wildfires in recent years. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
A woman cools herself with a hand fan during a heat wave in central Nicosia, Cyprus, Tuesday, July 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)
View of the burned area in Muriel, Guadalajara province, Spain, Wednesday, July 22, 2026, after a wildfire scorched tens of thousands of hectares in one of Spain's largest wildfires in recent years. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
View of the burned area in Muriel, Guadalajara province, Spain, Wednesday, July 22, 2026, after a wildfire scorched tens of thousands of hectares in one of Spain's largest wildfires in recent years. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, right, arrives at Tamajón, Guadalajara province, Spain, Wednesday, July 22, 2026, after a wildfire scorched tens of thousands of hectares in one of Spain's largest wildfires in recent years. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
View of the burned area in Muriel, Guadalajara province, Spain, Wednesday, July 22, 2026, after a wildfire scorched tens of thousands of hectares in one of Spain's largest wildfires in recent years. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
View of the burned area in Muriel, Guadalajara province, Spain, Wednesday, July 22, 2026, after a wildfire scorched tens of thousands of hectares in one of Spain's largest wildfires in recent years. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
