The Lilium Jet is a prototype German electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) electrically powered airplane designed by

Lilium GmbH Lilium GmbH is a German aerospace company which is the developer of the Lilium Jet, an electrically powered personal air vehicle capable of VTOL flight. History Lilium GmbH was founded in 2015 by four engineers and PhD students at the Techni ...

. A seven-seat production version is planned.

History

Initial design studies included forward-folding wings, so that the aircraft could be piloted as a VTOL and recharge in only few hours from a standard 240 V electrical outlet. A first half-scale demonstrator, ''Falcon'', flew in 2015. The unmanned

first flight The maiden flight, also known as first flight, of an aircraft is the first occasion on which it leaves the ground under its own power. The same term is also used for the first launch of rockets. The maiden flight of a new aircraft type is alwa ...

of the two-seat ''Eagle'' full size

prototype A prototype is an early sample, model, or release of a product built to test a concept or process. It is a term used in a variety of contexts, including semantics, design, electronics, and Software prototyping, software programming. A prototyp ...

was on 20 April 2017 at the Mindelheim-Mattsies airfield,

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. The five-seat unmanned Lilium Jet was flight tested at

Oberpfaffenhofen Oberpfaffenhofen is a village that is part of the municipality of Weßling in the district of Starnberg, Bavaria, Germany. It is located about from the city center of Munich. Village The village is home to the Oberpfaffenhofen Airport and a m ...

airfield near Munich. It first flew in May 2019. By October 2019, after 100 flights, it could transition from vertical to horizontal flight, reaching over , but not yet fully horizontal. It managed 25° banked turns, high ascent/descent rates like in operations, hover turns and sideward translations. Electrical, fan and flap failures were mitigated by the electrical and

flight control system A conventional Fixed-wing aircraft, fixed-wing aircraft flight control system consists of flight control surfaces, the respective cockpit controls, connecting linkages, and the necessary operating mechanisms to control an aircraft's direction ...

s. The first prototype was destroyed by fire during maintenance on 27 February 2020. A second partially-constructed prototype was undamaged. A further unfinished prototype was abandoned, and work begun on a seven-seat version, with projected first flight in 2022.

Design

In a Lilium Jet, lift is generated conventionally by propellers, but the propellers are rotated via purely electromagnetic means. The production Lilium Jet is intended to accommodate six passengers and one pilot. It is powered by 36

electric motor An electric motor is an Electric machine, electrical machine that converts electrical energy into mechanical energy. Most electric motors operate through the interaction between the motor's magnetic field and electric current in a Electromagneti ...

s, six on each of the two front wings and twelve on each rear wing. The engines are installed above twelve tiltable rear

flap Flap may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Flap'' (film), a 1970 American film * Flap, a boss character in the arcade game ''Gaiapolis'' * Flap, a minor character in the film '' Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland'' Biology and he ...

s. The drive-carrying flaps pivot downwards for vertical launch. At the transition to the horizontal position, forward

thrust Thrust is a reaction force described quantitatively by Newton's third law. When a system expels or accelerates mass in one direction, the accelerated mass will cause a force of equal magnitude but opposite direction to be applied to that syst ...

is generated. This is claimed to be significantly more economical than a conventional

rotorcraft A rotorcraft or rotary-wing aircraft is a heavier-than-air aircraft with rotary wings or rotor blades, which generate lift by rotating around a vertical mast. Several rotor blades mounted on a single mast are referred to as a rotor. The Internati ...

. The target range is . Its 36 electric ducted fans are powered by a lithium-ion battery; less than is required to cruise.

Specifications

Usage

The Lilium GmbH plans to found an

air taxi An air taxi is a small commercial aircraft that makes short flights on demand. In 2001 air taxi operations were promoted in the United States by a NASA and aerospace industry study on the potential Small Aircraft Transportation System (SATS) an ...

service for urban air mobility with the Lilium Jet. The company expects that pilots will be needed for around 10 years until autonomous flights can take over.

Award

In October 2019 the Lilium five-seater Jet received a

Red Dot The Red Dot Design Award is a German international design prize awarded by Red Dot GmbH & Co. KG. There are prize categories for product design, brands and communication design, and design concept. Since 1955, designers and producers can apply ...

Award: Design Concept for “Best of the Best”.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Official website

Independent Website / eVTOL News
Proposed aircraft of Germany Canard aircraft Electric aircraft Urban air mobility EVTOL aircraft Aircraft first flown in 2017 Aircraft first flown in 2019