The company named to provide air taxi service during the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles is taking to the skies on a multi-city tour to demonstrate its Midnight electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft.
Archer Aviation is set to launch what it calls the “No Roads” tour with a number of city-to-city flights, the company announced Thursday.
“We’ve been running test flights all year out of our home base in Salinas, including more than 70 test flights last month. Now we’re taking the show on the road. First stop is Hollister, which we’ll fly to in the next few days, with many more flights after that planned across Northern California, LA, Texas and Florida,” said Adam Goldstein, Founder and CEO of Archer in an interview conducted via email.
Each flight is designed to demonstrate how air taxi service can save travel time with routes that might take an hour or more to complete by car, but 10 to 20 minutes via Midnight eVTOL, the company said, in a release.
The “No Roads” tour aims to advance Archer’s operational readiness to provide air taxi service during the 2028 Summer Olympics as the official provider for the service, and as a participant in the White House’s eVTOL Integration Pilot Program launched in March to accelerate development of advanced air mobility.
Along with Archer, Elroy Air, Joby Aviation, Electra and BETA Technologies were chosen to participate in eIPP to both test their technologies and demonstrate their capabilities.
“I’ve talked a lot about the ‘Waymo Moment for air taxis’—the chance for us to get communities more comfortable with this tech. This is the beginning of that story and our biggest step yet toward making air taxis an everyday reality in cities across America. The ‘No Roads’ Tour is how we bring that narrative to life while also preparing for what’s next: flights in multiple states under the White House’s pilot program, and the first Midnight flights in Los Angeles ahead of LA28.” said Goldstein.
The tour comes just weeks after completion of 70 test flights in August and a piloted round-trip flight from Salinas Municipal Airport and Monterey Regional Airport at the end of July. See video below.
The Midnight is an electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft that carries a pilot, four passengers and their carry-on luggage. It’s designed to quickly make back-to-back flights with zero emissions, reducing 60 to 90 minute urban commutes to a fraction of that time at speeds of up to 150 miles per hour.
The eVTOL takes off and lands vertically, but flies horizontally like a fixed-wing airplane.
In addition to the demonstration flights Archer plans to unveil charging locations across multiple states as part of America’s Consortium for Electric Skyways, or ACES, program with BETA Technologies and Macquarie Capital.
The goal of the ACES program is to bring interoperable charging to more than 250 aviation sites across the U.S. by 2030, supporting the goals of the eIPP program leading to nationwide air taxi operations.