Archer Aviation’s Midnight air taxi has a special airworthiness certificate from the FAA for market surveys, Archer said on 9 November. It plans piloted flights in Los Angeles in the coming weeks.
The certificate is in the FAA’s experimental category, which federal rules issue for purposes including market surveys, sales demonstrations and customer crew training. It is not a type certificate, the FAA’s approval of the design itself, which no electric air taxi maker has yet received.
Passengers, in time
Archer says the certificate lets it move on to passenger trials and revenue flights under the Department of Transportation’s eVTOL Integration Pilot Program, and at the Los Angeles Olympic Games in 2028. It gave no date for the first passenger.
The flights so far have been piloted demonstrations. In October Midnight flew more than 300 miles around the San Francisco Bay Area, including flights in and out of Oakland International Airport, Archer said.
Transition still to come
One milestone is still open. Midnight lifts off on its propellers and cruises on its wing; the switch between the two is called transition. Archer has yet to complete it with a pilot aboard. It is “closing in” on doing so by the end of the year, chief executive Adam Goldstein wrote to shareholders.
Midnight is in the last phase of FAA type certification, in which the agency makes its compliance findings against the agreed test plans, Archer said.
Boeing deal nearly done
Archer’s purchase of three Boeing businesses, Wisk, Insitu and SkyGrid, is close to completion. Only one of nearly 20 government and third-party approvals is outstanding, Goldstein wrote, and the deal will close “much sooner” than the end of the year. Boeing will then be Archer’s largest shareholder.
Insitu, which builds military reconnaissance drones, has more than $200 million of annual revenue, Archer says. Archer itself had $5.1 million of revenue in the third quarter and a net loss of $274.6 million. It ended September with $1,353.6 million in cash and short-term investments.
