ARC

History

Samad Aerospace was founded in 2017 by Seyed Mohseni and based at Cranfield Technology Park, as a technology start-up that set out to manufacture safe, eco-friendly, scalable, luxury electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) and hybrid-electric VTOL passenger aircraft for Urban Air Mobility (UAM) and for air cargo. The company has designed multiple models of eVTOL and hybrid-electric VTOL to help shape the future with eco-friendly door-to-door air urban air transportation.

The first design to be shown publicly was the hybrid-electric, carbon fiber composite 10-seat Starling Jet, with a range of up to 1,300nm, unveiled in February 2018. The hybrid propulsion system consists of a gas turbine connected to a generator charging the batteries, and providing power for the electric lift and the cruise motors. The aircraft can also use the hot thrust from the gas turbine for further cruise acceleration, outside urban areas. the generator drives five fan thrusters in a blended wing-body airframe: two on the trailing edge of the wing, rotatable to thrust vertically or horizontally, two units embedded in the aircraft’s blended wing body, which are only used during vertical flight, plus one fixed fan located in the tail, providing the necessary thrust to take the aircraft beyond stall speed and transition from hover to cruise.

This design was followed by the smaller 5-seat e-Starling, a Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) electric business jet with a V-tail and a projected range of 350nm, of similar configuration to the Starling Jet. A 50%-scale prototype of the CTOL version, the S5U, underwent flight tests in Sept 2020. The third member of the original Samad family is the UAV Starling, a hybrid-electric Vertical Take-Off and Landing (eVTOL) unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that will be used for delivery, observation, and patrol missions.

In 2019 Samad Aerospace developed a modular air taxi concept, the HUMA (Home and Urban Mobility Aircraft), in which a passenger pod could easily transfer between a wheeled base for travelling on roads, to a wing-borne system for flight. Its core is a pod for two passengers, which can be mated with a either flight module or a road module.

Also in 2019, Samad introduced the two-seat Q-Starling, a spin-off project to the e-Starling, targeting owners of high-end luxury cars. By 2021, this had morphed into the Starling Sport design.

In July 2021, the Starling Cargo aircraft was announced. The company signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) agreement with Aerosud Aviation (based in South Africa) for the development and manufacturing of the Starling Cargo aircraft. The company planned to start serial production in 2022. The Starling Cargo S5 is intended as a sub-scale demonstrator aircraft, used to test the aerodynamics of the aircraft, flight control systems, the handling quality of the aircraft and to validate all of its technology.

In 2022 SAMAD Aerospace was renamed to ARC AeroSystems, and by November that year were developing two unmanned cargo drones, the ARC-C150 and ARC-C600.

However, although flight tests of the half scale demonstrator of the e-Starling were planned, an analysis of the certification requirements concluded that the development costs would have been pushing $2 billion, and when factored against the targeted price for the aircraft and likely infrastructure constraints, it was concluded that this was not a viable programme. Instead, ARC sought alternatives, and currently (2023) intends to adapt and modernise the already certificated Avian Gyroplane, a 1960s design, creating the nine-passenger Linx P9.

Company References

1. https://arcaerosystems.com
2. https://www.flightglobal.com/business-aviation/farnborough-samads-starling-vtol-swoops-into-farnborough/128846.article
3. https://www.flightglobal.com/business-aviation/samads-e-starling-enters-preliminary-design-phase/130269.article
4. https://www.flightglobal.com/business-aviation/lima-uks-samad-promotes-modular-air-taxi-design/132031.article
5. https://www.flightglobal.com/business-aviation/samad-to-launch-luxury-spin-off-of-estarling/135286.article
6. https://www.flightglobal.com/news/samad-readies-half-scale-e-starling-for-september-maiden-sortie/139846.article
7. https://www.flightglobal.com/business-aviation/luxury-q-starling-aircraft-is-designed-in-uk-but-may-be-built-overseas/140421.article
8. https://www.flightglobal.com/aerospace/samad-completes-hover-tests-on-second-estarling-prototype/144778.article
9. https://www.flightglobal.com/aerospace/government-grants-boost-arc-aerosystems-linx-p9-project/152619.article