Lilium aviation electric VTOL jet.

Yes they have swallowed billions, but a chunk of those billions came from people with millions to burn. In the later part of the 20th Century it would have been millions swallowed. Automobiles were outrageously expensive mode of transportation at their beginning; trains before that. I agree that there are any number of charlatans out there in the eVTOL community, but I think Lilium is actually trying to make their horseless buggy work. They may not make it (how many car companies were there in the US alone from 1910-1930?).

As an aside Lilium will be more popular with the public because it has "jet engines" (I know, but I'm talking as "The Public", not an aviation aficionado), vice those antiquated propellers like on helicopters. Everyone knows those are dangerous to fly in.
 
Moose said:
Test flignt video, full transition on the main wing and canard.
View: https://youtu.be/ywJWka1evH8
Click to expand...
Really impressive "manned" demonstration, but that is a lot of turbine engines, somewhat overkill? However, Aurora Flight Sciences did not even come close to this point with Lightening Strike, could not make the three, 1mW Honeywell "Hotel" generators work and it was supposed to generate 3mW of power to drive nearly 30 ducted fans. Cheers and kudos to Lilium.
 
Looks nice. Interesting to see that the flow over the canard never really attaches properly.
 
We would need now that they share a little bit of numbers: mass, cargo, duration...

I still don't see why they don't use a vertical to refrain the usage on thrusters.

And let's remember that this is another Thanos friendly simulated case. On demand mobility is for people reaching to other people among (a lot of) traffic. I would like to see them holding pattern, changing altitude, align with the rwy, make a long approach, taxy like a vertical lander must do etc...
 
Hydroman said:
Really impressive "manned" demonstration, but that is a lot of turbine engines, somewhat overkill? However, Aurora Flight Sciences did not even come close to this point with Lightening Strike, could not make the three, 1mW Honeywell "Hotel" generators work and it was supposed to generate 3mW of power to drive nearly 30 ducted fans. Cheers and kudos to Lilium.
Click to expand...

Are you talking about the same plane? The Liliuim Phoenix 2 in the video is nether manned nor turbojet powered. The "cockpit" is full of batteries and stuff, while the "jets" are electric motors driving plain old ducted fans.
 
Reaper said:
Looks nice. Interesting to see that the flow over the canard never really attaches properly.
Click to expand...

One would expect the airflow over them to be stalled in the climb, as the surfaces are deflected downwards. At other times, when not lifting hard, the flow does appear to settle.

What intrigues me is that there is no tail fin or rudder. Despite the side area of the canards, the rear winglets appear to provide sufficient directional stability (unless it is artificial). But what about such essential manoeuvres as the tight turn, the sideslip and the crosswind (STOL) landing? Some of these can be achieved by differential use of thrust levels and vectoring, but in an engine-out situation the plane would lack adequate controllability.

So as ever, once certification is sought, an unanticipated need for a redesign may appear, astonishing the designers and backfooting them on the cashflow. Hope I'm wrong.
 
It's a startup: while they are only designing, understand working only on computer, often essentially producing marketing material, they are making money by having small expenditures.
 
coanda said:
steelpillow said:
Reaper said:
Looks nice. Interesting to see that the flow over the canard never really attaches properly.
Click to expand...

One would expect the airflow over them to be stalled in the climb, as the surfaces are deflected downwards. At other times, when not lifting hard, the flow does appear to settle.

What intrigues me is that there is no tail fin or rudder. Despite the side area of the canards, the rear winglets appear to provide sufficient directional stability (unless it is artificial). But what about such essential manoeuvres as the tight turn, the sideslip and the crosswind (STOL) landing? Some of these can be achieved by differential use of thrust levels and vectoring, but in an engine-out situation the plane would lack adequate controllability.

So as ever, once certification is sought, an unanticipated need for a redesign may appear, astonishing the designers and backfooting them on the cashflow. Hope I'm wrong.
Click to expand...
They'll land immediately if they lose any single propulsor unit. That way they can always claim to have adequate redundancy for differential thrust etc.

Only way to lose power to whole banks of propulsors is to lose a wing or have your batteries fail - probably catastrophically. In which case balanced turns aren't really a concern anymore.
Click to expand...

It's no good offering solutions to just some scenarios, you have to resolve them all. And if the risk of a battery failure turning catastrophic was significant, then the type would be grounded, end of story.

Something as basic as flat batteries is likely to be tolerated, if suitable provision is made. Any aircraft routinely flying over a city like this must be capable of a dead-stick landing. You can't really autorotate this kind of deeply ducted fan, so Phoenix 2 would have to make a STOL approach to a short runway. With no independent yaw control to correct for crosswinds, emergency landing sites would need to be generous areas, kept free of obstacles or people at all times, and there is no room for that in a crowded cityscape. A rudder would at least allow a single narrow strip of ground, regardless of wind direction.

With the canard layout and short fuselage, drag rudders on the main wing tips would seem essential.
 
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They won't need to be able to dead stick with enough redundancy with their batteries and that much of engines. They can simply add smaller capacity batteries here and there in the airframe for that to be enough to land.
If really it comes to a commercial argument around their safety, a parachute would do it.
 
Hydroman said:
Moose said:
Test flignt video, full transition on the main wing and canard.
View: https://youtu.be/ywJWka1evH8
Click to expand...
Really impressive "manned" demonstration, but that is a lot of turbine engines, somewhat overkill? However, Aurora Flight Sciences did not even come close to this point with Lightening Strike, could not make the three, 1mW Honeywell "Hotel" generators work and it was supposed to generate 3mW of power to drive nearly 30 ducted fans. Cheers and kudos to Lilium.
Click to expand...
A few thoughts:
- I am glad they finally got to the point where the vehicle was likely wingborne. I am still a big critic of the configuration but there are a lot of engineers working on this whose efforts are finally rewarded. Achieving transition is nothing to sneeze at. Still would never invest a dime in that company.
- Aurora Flight Sciences flew a fully-electric subscale demonstrator of LightningStrike for DARPA. There's video and pictures available. It was about 300 lbs of which half were batteries. It flew at a hair under wingborne speed with no problems and was limited by having to fly within the boundaries of the runway, so it did not have time to accelerate fully and decelerate to a stop. But flight control laws were demonstrated. This was like 8 years ago, and probably at a fraction of what Lilium spent to get here.
- The concept of flightworthy 1 MW generators was science fiction back in 2013. I think NASA/GE's EPFD program will be the first to fly one, ten years later. Meanwhile Honeywell seems to have taken the same generator and coupled it to a turboshaft to produce what is claimed to be a 250kW turbogenerator, or only a quarter of the original goal, which should tell you how much trouble that generator was...
 
AeroFranz said:
Hydroman said:
Moose said:
Test flignt video, full transition on the main wing and canard.
View: https://youtu.be/ywJWka1evH8
Click to expand...
Really impressive "manned" demonstration, but that is a lot of turbine engines, somewhat overkill? However, Aurora Flight Sciences did not even come close to this point with Lightening Strike, could not make the three, 1mW Honeywell "Hotel" generators work and it was supposed to generate 3mW of power to drive nearly 30 ducted fans. Cheers and kudos to Lilium.
Click to expand...
A few thoughts:
- I am glad they finally got to the point where the vehicle was likely wingborne. I am still a big critic of the configuration but there are a lot of engineers working on this whose efforts are finally rewarded. Achieving transition is nothing to sneeze at. Still would never invest a dime in that company.
- Aurora Flight Sciences flew a fully-electric subscale demonstrator of LightningStrike for DARPA. There's video and pictures available. It was about 300 lbs of which half were batteries. It flew at a hair under wingborne speed with no problems and was limited by having to fly within the boundaries of the runway, so it did not have time to accelerate fully and decelerate to a stop. But flight control laws were demonstrated. This was like 8 years ago, and probably at a fraction of what Lilium spent to get here.
- The concept of flightworthy 1 MW generators was science fiction back in 2013. I think NASA/GE's EPFD program will be the first to fly one, ten years later. Meanwhile Honeywell seems to have taken the same generator and coupled it to a turboshaft to produce what is claimed to be a 250kW turbogenerator, or only a quarter of the original goal, which should tell you how much trouble that generator was...
Click to expand...
I was incorrect in my previous post, I thought the Lilium was all small gas turbines but everyone corrected me, these are motor driven ducted fans. Hamilton-Sundstrand produces the 250kW starter-generators (circa 2005) for the B787. 1mW is a hefty challenge and the full scale Lightening Strike required 3 each for 3mW of power. Yes AeroFranz, Aurora did successfully fly their sub-scale demonstrator.
 
coanda said:
It looks like they think otherwise to you, and since they're the people doing it for real....we'll wait for their cert of airworthiness and permissions to operate. Otherwise, I'd assume they have yaw control covered.
Click to expand...
Yeah. Like I said, "Hope I'm wrong." But historically the number of startups doing it for real and failing to make it work have far outweighed the successful companies, that is no argument at all.
 
The closest thing we will ever have to Blade Runner’s Spinner, with no anti-gravity.
 
Is Lilium about to finally run out of road?

Yesterday the Lilium’s Co CEO Brett Alcock wrote to the share holders to inform them they didn’t have enough cash for operations in 2023. While not an immediate issue, he advised to still be solvent by the end of the year they would need either customer deposits or government subsidies.
 
Zoo Tycoon said:
Is Lilium about to finally run out of road?

Yesterday the Lilium’s Co CEO Brett Alcock wrote to the share holders to inform them they didn’t have enough cash for operations in 2023. While not an immediate issue, he advised to still be solvent by the end of the year they would need either customer deposits or government subsidies.
Click to expand...
Screenshot_20230105_213108.jpg
New Year. Same Mission... Burn money :)
 
Here is a German article about Lilium which gives some (realistic) information about the range. I mentioned it already in the eVTOL thread, but without the quotation (it was behind a paywall).:

www.welt.de

Lilium: „Kleiner regionaler Airliner“ – Chef denkt über Zweisitzer nach - WELT

Daniel Wiegand scheidet als Lilium-Chef und wird Chefingenieur. Und schon will er die Modellpalette vergrößern. Wie er mitteilte, beschäftigt sich das Elektro-Flugtaxi-Start-up nun auch mit Kleinmodellen – auch autonomen.
www.welt.de www.welt.de

Google translate works very well between German and English, so everybody should be able to read it. You have to read somewhat between the lines, they say, that they are now using a real landing gear which could increase range if necessary (The normal mode would still be vertical take off and landing...). The new maximum range is now down to 250 km and this is surly only possible thanks to the reinvention of the langing gear which enables energy efficient horizontal take offs and landings. The operational range shall be 175 km, which is just 75 km shorter than the maximum range. Under IFR conditions and/or vertical take off and landing the operational range will be next to nothing.

The new members of the board are obviously not interested on going into jail, so that they are blurring the facts, but not lying...

They started the project with 500 km range and 400 km/h....
 
"Fait les valises, Lilium ! " because soon, the company will go under... ok, I'll get my coat...
 
I did a calculation of the hover power myself (can be simply done, because the diameter and number of the fans are known) and came to about 2800 kW with overly optimistic 80% (!) efficiency (which fits btw. to the Lilium paper). It can be seen in the “Flugzeugforum.de”)

This is incredible high and will result in an extremely high energy consumption, especially if a landing has to be interrupted. An other side effect is a high weight of the propulsion engines, even if we assume an optimistic 10kW/kg short time power for the engines, this will result in 280 kg engine weight! Accordingly, the FU ´, the cables and so on will also add mass.

They need a wonder battery to make it work, but than other EVTOL could use the same battery and archive much better performance.
 
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How to fly Lilium (simulator ride):

90


newatlas.com

How to fly a next-gen eVTOL aircraft: We take a lesson at Lilium

Piloting a cruise-capable eVTOL aircraft will be unlike flying anything that's come before it, thanks to fully digital fly-by-wire flight control systems. We jumped in Lilium's motion-rig simulator to learn how the system feels from the cockpit.
newatlas.com newatlas.com
 
Looking back into 2015:
Liliumwas promising a flying car with 500 km range, 450 km/h and a manned flight in 2019:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htaeARwse1w&t=82s&ab_channel=ecosummitTV

The first layout waas completly silly, there was only one wing at the very rear of that thing.

I find it hard to believe, that you can collect so much money and even get top engineers for such a nonsense!

BTW, the shares of Lilium are rapidly going down again...
 
Notice how not much has moved since the Caravaggio picture. Pay attention also to the manufacturing methods that are not unconventional- Also, the thickness of the cabin sidewalls that restrict internal volume.

www.aerotime.aero

Behind the scenes at Lilium’s headquarters in Germany - AeroTime

AeroTime looks behind the scenes at Lilium’s headquarters in Germany to find out more about the eVTOL firm aiming to disrupt regional air travel.
www.aerotime.aero www.aerotime.aero

IMG_3129-800x500.jpg


lilium-jet-factory-1.jpg
 
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www.ainonline.com

France May Provide Funds For Lilium eVTOL Aircraft Production Line | AIN

Bavaria-based Lilium is negotiating with the French government over a funding package to support a high-rate production facility for the Lilium Jet in France.
www.ainonline.com www.ainonline.com

www.ainonline.com

German Officials Start Due Diligence For Lilium's eVTOL Loan Guarantees | AIN

Road blocks to loan guarantees for the Lilium Jet eVTOL aircraft may soon be cleared now Germany's KfW bank is conducting due diligence on the company.
www.ainonline.com www.ainonline.com

It's amazing that this project is still able to obtain funding despite the dubious technical feasibility of the design.
 
And today begging for money:

In response, over 650 founders and investors — and counting — have come out in support of a federal guarantee for the Bavarian startup, having signed an initiative called “Enable loans for Lilium, strengthen Germany as a deep tech location”.

The signed names include founders such as Daniel Metzler, cofounder and CEO of Isar Aerospace, Bastian Nominacher, cofounder of Celonis and Miriam Wohlfarth, cofounder and CEO of Banxware, as well as Verena Pausder, the chairperson of The German Startup Association.

In a press release, the German Startup Association makes clear that if Germany wants to compete globally, it needs to back startups working on innovative deeptech technologies.
Click to expand...

Years of operations, an historic high in cash prized money and not a single prototype flying despite the absence of demanding clients tearing apart their proposal or technologies that haven´t been flown before them . What an historical waste of money that Germans, minus the 600 here, would certainly be ashamed in the future.

 
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Lilium files for insolvency;-

flightplan.forecastinternational.com

Lilium Jet Files for Insolvency - Flight Plan

Over the course of the past several years, German eVTOL startup Lilium Jet had seemingly secured its place amongst the premier contenders within the burgeoning UAM market. As recently as …
flightplan.forecastinternational.com flightplan.forecastinternational.com

Nine years of a steady stream of promises to provide a low cost, green, mass transport miracle, spending 1.5 billion dollars and they didn’t fly a single person.

I’m still amazed they lasted as long as they did!
 
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How could they still have 1000 employee? What were their tasks? How Lilium did not scale back its activities after filling for bankruptcy?!

That sounds weird.
 
TomcatViP said:
How could they still have 1000 employee? What were their tasks? How Lilium did not scale back its activities after filling for bankruptcy?!

That sounds weird.
Click to expand...

Well, according to the CEO Röwe, they had many highly interested investors back then and he was highly optimistic that they will perform the first flight in early 2025....

It was an "insolvency on your own initiative", were business preceded as before, with support from public money for the sales. This is a regular type of insolvency in Germany which can be applied if there is some hope, that the company might survive...
 
www.flightglobal.com

Lilium lifted by Christmas miracle as last-minute sale agreed

Cash-strapped Lilium has agreed an unlikely last-ditch rescue, selling its German operating units to a consortium of investors just days after terminating the contracts of all its staff.
www.flightglobal.com www.flightglobal.com

Taken over by a company called Mobile Uplift... although the contracts of all staffs are already terminated.
 

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