The design bureau's name (Cyrillic: Архангельский) is transliterated in many ways in English sources, in a variety of combinations of Arch-, Arkh-, -sky, -ski, -skii, -skij).

The Ar-2 was therefore a greater departure from the Tupolev design, in the hopes of creating an aircraft that could attain a speed of 600 km/h (374 mph) at 6,500 m (21,300 ft), and incorporate the newly developed PB-3 bombsight to give dive-bombing capability.

The engine cooling system was moved inside the wings, with air inlets on the leading edges and exits on the underwings.

While the hoped-for top speed was not attained, the aircraft's handling was an improvement on the SB, and the dive-bombing adaptations worked very well.

All further work in this direction was terminated at the outbreak of war with Germany and Alexander Arkhangelsky was reassigned to Zavod 156 to oversee maintenance and repair of operational SB aircraft.