Archer Aviation’s eIPP selection brings air taxis closer to US cities, but certification questions remain

The photo tells you everything about where Archer Aviation actually is right now. That’s N703AX, the company’s Midnight eVTOL air taxi, flying in conventional airplane mode. The six fixed VTOL-only propellers sit stowed on top while the six tilt-propellers on the wing point forward for cruise flight. It looks like a normal aircraft because, in that configuration, it basically is one. The hard part, vertical takeoff and landing with passengers aboard, is still being tested.

Today, Archer announced that the US Department of Transportation and FAA selected its partners in Texas, New York, and Florida for the White House’s eVTOL Integration Pilot Program (eIPP). The program creates a pathway to bring what the government calls “the first new category of aircraft in nearly 80 years” to market. Archer will now work directly with the Texas Department of Transportation, the Florida Department of Transportation, and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to prepare for early Midnight operations as soon as the second half of 2026.

The eIPP program and what it means

The eIPP is a three-year initiative born from President Trump’s June 2025 executive order titled “Unleashing American Drone Dominance.” It allows eVTOL manufacturers to conduct real-world operations, potentially including revenue flights, before achieving full FAA type certification. That last detail is the real news here: the FAA is letting companies fly and potentially charge money before their aircraft are fully certified, something not normally permitted under existing test programs. The FAA required participants to submit proposals by December 11, 2025, and announced selections today. Archer had submitted applications with partners across California, Texas, Florida, Georgia, and New York.

Archer had also submitted an exclusive application with the City of Huntington Beach, California, meaning it was the sole air taxi manufacturer on that bid. Today’s selections covered Texas, New York, and Florida only. Huntington Beach is just a few miles from Hawthorne Municipal Airport, where Archer completed the first phase of its $126 million acquisition in December 2025 to establish its LA operations hub and future home base for its planned air taxi network.

Archer CEO Adam Goldstein called the selection “the clearest sign yet from the White House, the FAA and the DOT that bringing air taxis to market in the United States is a real priority.”

Both Joby Aviation and Beta Technologies also participated in the eIPP process. Joby worked with partners in Texas, Florida, Ohio, New York, and California, while Boeing’s Wisk Aero confirmed plans to fly its autonomous Generation 6 air taxi under the program. Joby has also been building its defense portfolio alongside its commercial certification push, mirroring Archer’s own dual-track strategy.

Midnight’s flight test timeline raises questions

Understanding the eIPP news requires knowing where Archer’s Midnight aircraft actually stands in testing. The photo in Archer’s tweet shows N703AX, serial number 2025-M001-1, in CTOL (conventional takeoff and landing) flight. The aircraft’s first piloted flight occurred on May 30, 2025, from Salinas Municipal Airport in California, where it climbed to 1,500 feet and hit 108.6 knots.

The 2025 CTOL campaign was impressive on its own terms. Midnight covered over 50 miles in a single flight, flew for more than 30 minutes, reached altitudes above 10,000 feet, and hit speeds exceeding 150 mph. In September, the aircraft reached 7,000 feet altitude during envelope expansion testing.

But here is the detail worth paying attention to: N703AX spent all of 2025 flying as a conventional airplane. No piloted vertical takeoffs. No piloted vertical landings. As we noted when covering Honda’s eVTOL reveal, EHang is the only company that has actually achieved eVTOL type certification anywhere in the world, through China’s CAAC. Western companies are still working toward it.

Archer disclosed in its Q4 2025 earnings call on March 2 that it has now begun piloted VTOL flight testing on a newer aircraft. The FAA issued Archer’s second piloted Midnight (registration N704AX) its special airworthiness certificate in February 2026. That aircraft is now working through progressively advanced VTOL test points ahead of full piloted transition flight in the coming months.

The certification gap between ambition and reality

Archer does hold a genuine milestone: it became the first company to achieve 100% FAA acceptance of its eVTOL Means of Compliance, which is the FAA-agreed criteria for demonstrating that Midnight meets airworthiness requirements. That unlocks the path to finalize remaining certification plans and move toward Type Inspection Authorization (TIA), which Archer says could begin as soon as this year.

The company also has money in the bank. Archer ended 2025 with roughly $2 billion in liquidity, its highest ever, after raising $1.8 billion through three registered direct offerings during the year. The full-year net loss was $618.2 million, with Q1 2026 adjusted EBITDA loss guidance between $160 million and $180 million.

Short sellers have questioned the timeline. Grizzly Research published a report in August 2025 dubbing Archer “the Nikola of the Skies,” claiming FAA experts it consulted believed the most optimistic commercial launch date is 2028 or beyond. The firm also questioned Archer’s $6 billion order book, pointing to customers with limited track records. As we reported on Hong Kong’s eVTOL strategy, the gap between Western certification timelines and Chinese operational reality continues to widen.

Culper Research followed with its own short report in February 2026, claiming flight logs showed no ground or air tests for three months prior. The firm also alleged that Goldstein told certain institutional investors during private meetings that FAA certification now targets 2028 due to required design changes. Archer has disputed these claims.

For context, rival Joby Aviation is further ahead in the FAA’s five-stage certification framework. By Q3 2025, Joby reported roughly 70% completion of Stage 4 testing. Archer’s last public figure was 15%, disclosed through Q1 2025 before the company stopped reporting the metric. Joby completed its first crewed full transition flight on April 22, 2025, and has logged over 40,000 miles of flight testing.

The defense pivot and UAE operations

Archer is not putting all its eggs in the FAA certification basket. Its partnership with Anduril Industries is producing an autonomous, hybrid-electric VTOL aircraft designed for both military and commercial use. Archer also completed a first third-party powertrain deal with Anduril and the UAE’s EDGE Group to power the Omen autonomous air vehicle.

In the UAE, Archer completed a full flight test campaign in November 2025 covering vertical takeoff, transition, and wingborne operations at Al Bateen Executive Airport in Abu Dhabi. Archer is pursuing a Restricted Type Certificate with the UAE’s GCAA, the first eVTOL manufacturer to establish that pathway there. The FAA finalized its own eVTOL pilot training rules in October 2024, but the UAE’s regulatory framework moves faster.

The company also announced partnerships with Palantir, NVIDIA, and SpaceX for software and connectivity integration, and opened a new UK engineering hub in Bristol with 20-plus engineers supporting Anduril collaboration.

DroneXL’s Take

The eIPP selection is real progress. Getting the FAA and DOT to create a formal pathway for pre-certification eVTOL operations is something the industry has wanted for years, and having Texas, New York, and Florida on board gives Archer three major markets to work with.

But let’s be honest about what this is and what it isn’t. The eIPP is a sandbox for testing, not a shortcut to certification. It lets Archer gather real-world operational data in actual urban environments, which is valuable. It does not change the fact that Midnight only started piloted VTOL flight testing weeks ago, that the company is still building toward its first piloted transition flight, and that the gap between Archer’s public 2026 passenger-flight target and the short sellers’ 2028 estimate is wide.

One detail from the Q4 earnings call stood out: Archer’s President of Aircraft OEM Benjamin Lyon admitted that during the CTOL campaign, their software update cycle was the pacing constraint. Traditional aerospace methods created multi-month delays that have since been reduced to days using automated deployment practices borrowed from Silicon Valley. That kind of candor about internal bottlenecks is rare in this industry and worth watching.

The cash math matters too. At current burn rates of roughly $160-180 million per quarter, Archer’s $2 billion war chest gives it about 2.5 to 3 years of runway. If certification slips to 2028, that math gets uncomfortable. Expect more capital raises.

My prediction: Archer will fly Midnight in VTOL mode at public eIPP demonstrations in at least one of the three selected states before year-end 2026. Full FAA type certification will not happen before mid-2027 at the earliest. The eIPP program itself is designed to run for three years, which tells you what the government actually expects the timeline to look like.

Editorial Note: AI tools were used to assist with research and archive retrieval for this article. All reporting, analysis, and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo.