When Lilium CEO Daniel Wiegand asked me a few months ago if I would accept an appointment to Lilium’s board, I didn’t have to think for long.
Lilium, unlike hardly any other aviation company in Europe, stands for fresh pioneering spirit, for a bold departure into new territory. This kind of pioneering spirit, innovation and entrepreneurial courage have always fascinated me — and driven me throughout my almost 30-year career in the aerospace industry.
Clearly, the idea of air taxis is not entirely new — it goes back more than 50 years. Demonstrators had already been built back then. But only now are all the conditions in place to turn this long-held vision into a technical and economic reality: battery technology, digitization, high-performance computers and artificial intelligence…
Ensuring the Lilium Jet and operations will be compliant with regulation.
The Lilium Jet and its operations are designed to comply with existing regulations, policies, and procedures of the relevant aviation rulebooks. In the first years of service, the aircraft will operate under the traditional rules of the air using conventional means of navigation and communication, facilitated by the onboard pilot.
In order to welcome our first passengers on board, we will need to comply with the safety regulations of the aircraft itself in addition to all operational aspects such as flight operations, crew training and the vertiport requirements. …
There are many ways to design an eVTOL aircraft, here is how we are thinking about the key design principles and why our team at Lilium is striving for a different architecture.
Revolutions are rare — particularly in the aerospace industry. Take the example of the Boeing 707. Introduced in 1957, it was the company’s first jetliner and was originally hailed as the ‘airliner of tomorrow’.
In many ways it was exactly that, delivering range, speed and efficiency that had never been seen before, representing a revolution to the existing long-range aviation of the day.
Taking the sci-fi vision of landing pads and turning it into a realistic and affordable transit option
This film shows a complete test flight, performed on 1st October 2019 as part of our first phase of testing with the Lilium Jet. The flight, which lasts approximately three minutes, formed part of our controllability tests and looked specifically at how the aircraft performs during banked turns in transition flight.
The aircraft completes a rough figure of eight during the flight, with the left turn being the specific test point for this flight. During this left turn, the aircraft banks first at 20° AoB (Angle of Bank) for approximately 90° heading change, before increasing the AoB to 30°…
Flight testing is a discipline that develops, gathers and analyzes data from an aircraft in the air to validate its design and to prove it is able to meet the safety standards set by aircraft regulators.
Why is flight testing important?
While we’re able to simulate almost everything about the flying qualities and performance of the aircraft on a computer, proving that we can achieve this performance in real life is central to us achieving certification for the Lilium Jet.
Our flight test program does this by putting the aircraft through a wide variety of activities designed to demonstrate how…
At Lilium, we believe in delivering high speed connectivity for everyone, which is why we’re focused on making regional air mobility a reality.
Urban air mobility — the aim to connect people and places within a single city — is a term which is becoming increasingly recognized today. But with regional air mobility we go one step further, connecting entire regions, whether that means taking a route from the city to the countryside, or traveling between major cities.
Regional air mobility has the power to increase your Radius of Life — the area in which we live our day-to-day life…
With a series of exciting announcements behind the company — and ahead — it’s been a big year for Lilium. Earlier this month we celebrated being placed second in LinkedIn’s ‘Top Startups 2019’ in Germany. The LinkedIn data analysis team evaluated actions by more than 645 million LinkedIn members to make their list. They focused on four areas of performance: employment growth, interest in job opportunities, user interactions with the company and its employees, and recruiting talent from companies on the list of LinkedIn Top Companies.
From the very beginning, Lilium’s vision has been to deliver a revolutionary mode of…
When designer Mathis Cosson sat down to sketch the Lilium Jet for the first time, his inspiration came not from the skies, but the oceans.
The then 23-year old designer, fresh from completing his studies at the Institut Supérieur de Design (a grande école of design management in Valenciennes, France), had been given the chance to stamp his identity on the future of air transport by leading the design of the latest Lilium Jet prototype.
The task would involve working hand-in-hand with the engineering team responsible for setting the requirements for the aircraft, as well as the founders of…
Nothing like the Lilium Jet has ever existed before. It’s a five-seater, all-electric, vertical take-off and landing tilt jet. Some people refer to aircraft like these as eVTOL (electric Vertical Take Off and Landing).
What are its main features?
The Lilium Jet features two fixed wings, one main wing at the rear of the aircraft, which measures about 11m across, and a ‘canard’ wing at the front of the aircraft, so-called because of its resemblance to a duck.
The canard wings each have two flaps and the main wings have four. We mount three of our pioneering all-electric jet engines…
Lilium
We’re developing a revolutionary on-demand air taxi service to enable a world where anyone can fly anywhere, anytime. For our story, visit www.lilium.com
