Archer Aviation has completed an extensive campaign of piloted flight tests in Northern California with its Midnight eVTOL aircraft. On Monday, the company said the prototype is now being moved to the Los Angeles after a week of flights in and around San Francisco Bay from a base at Oakland International Airport (KOAK).
The so-called ‘No Roads’ tour series of trial operations started at Salinas Municipal Airport (KSNS) at the end of July with a round-trip flight to Monterey Regional Airport (KMRY). Over the past week, Archer’s flight test team has taken the Midnight to larger cities to encounter more complex airspace with stops in Hollister, San Martin, San Jose, Mountain View and Hayward
According to the manufacturer, its main objective was to demonstrate how the electric air taxi vehicle can operate alongside other aircraft in and around the Bay Area’s three international airports at San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose. Archer also aimed to give local residents a glimpse of how 10- to 20-minute flights could present an alternative to driving on the area’s congested highways.
The flight from Oakland to the Marina District in the center of San Francisco took around 10 minutes, compared with over an hour by road. Flying to seven cities over a three-day period, the Midnight flew over 174 nm and logged top speeds of 114 knots.
“The Bay Area is the innovation center of the world, but even here Americans lose multiple weeks a year sitting in traffic on bridges and highways," Archer CEO Adam Goldstein commented. "Flying Midnight across multiple cities in Northern California shows we can connect communities with no roads, no traffic, and no emissions in minutes instead of hours. That's the future we're working towards bringing to the Bay Area, Los Angeles and cities across the country.”
In Los Angeles, the Midnight is now being prepared to participate in the U.S.-government-backed eVTOL Integration Pilot Program that is intended to develop real-world use commercial use cases for the new aircraft. The program covers eight chosen projects across 28 states, with multiple eVTOL manufacturers involved in the trials.
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