Archer Aviation has completed a piloted round trip flight with Midnight between Salinas Municipal Airport and Hollister Municipal Airport, opening the first stage of its ‘No Roads’ flight test tour.

The tour will extend Archer’s city-to-city flight test programme across the United States in coordination with the FAA, with further routes planned to Monterey, San Martin, San Jose, Oakland and San Francisco. No start date has been confirmed for the wider northern California schedule.

The flight follows more than 70 test flights completed in August, part of a programme intended to lead into Midnight operations in the Los Angeles area as well as Texas and Florida. The work supports Archer’s role as official air taxi provider for the LA28 Games and its participation in the White House’s eVTOL Integration Pilot Programme.

Archer says the routes covered, which can take an hour or more by car, would take Midnight between 10 and 20 minutes, citing lower noise, zero operating emissions and freedom from road traffic as the benefits it hopes to demonstrate to local communities.

Adam Goldstein, founder and chief executive of Archer, says: “This is the beginning of that story and our biggest step yet toward making air taxis an everyday reality in cities across America.”

During the tour, Archer plans to unveil charging locations across multiple states under its ACES programme, developed with Beta Technologies and Macquarie Capital. The consortium’s interoperable charging approach is intended to build the electric aviation infrastructure needed to support the pilot programme and wider air taxi operations. Midnight is a piloted, four-passenger, all-electric aircraft designed for rapid back-to-back flights.