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It seems to me like there's a good future for electric VTOL. Whether for package delivery or for carrying people, you can take off vertically, and then transiti
by tachyonbeam 6y ago
It seems to me like there's a good future for electric VTOL. Whether for package delivery or for carrying people, you can take off vertically, and then transition to a horizontal flight regime using wings that's more energy efficient, so you can get more range.
- nonesuchluck 6y agoThis feels like the golden path to me, too. Lilium is claiming 300km range at 300km/hour, and appears to transition nicely to horizontal flight. Maybe not a great glide ratio on those stubby little wings, but it looks safer than quadcopters. They don't need all 36 ducted fans for normal flight, so eating a bird shouldn't spell death. Has anybody else shown off similar craft? Uber Air's eVTOL looks about 50% CGI/50% hype, but maybe I've missed something.
- marvin 6y agoMy layman's aerodynamic hunch says that Lilium is on the right design track for practical, reliable, long-range electric VTOL aircraft. There's two critical ingredients: Transitioning out of powered lift immediately after takeoff, and having a battery mass fraction that's as high as possible. Obviously, VTOL & payload limits the latter. Multicopter designs won't work; their power requirements are too high.
- strbean 6y agoThat's what they're hoping for at Joby Aviation: https://www.jobyaviation.com/ https://www.jobyaviation.com/