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Lilium, as I see it, has by far the most secure design of all air carrier designs we have seen recently. And there have been a lot including some really nice!
by kensai 5y ago
Lilium, as I see it, has by far the most secure design of all air carrier designs we have seen recently. And there have been a lot including some really nice!
Lilium is the only company going for this distributed propulsion system with so many rotors, adding the the safety of the whole thing. Safety should be paramount! A couple of deadly accidents can literally ground a fleet otherwise.
Volocopter also tries a similar approach, but the lack of eVTOL probably makes that bird much slower than the Lilium product.
- fh973 5y agoHowever, Volocopter seems to be further with their product development, while there are serious doubts if the Lilium concept works at all.
- _Microft 5y agoWhat do you mean that their concept might not work at all? They have flown several iterations of their prototypes already but maybe you have something different in mind, e.g. doubts about the possibility to scale the concept up? Here are videos of recent test flights: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0idI3sJJKZw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0idI3sJJKZw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqMEFdbuzQY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqMEFdbuzQY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqvMXoVZfDw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqvMXoVZfDw
- AeZ1E 5y agoCool, but the event is not unmannedly flying around in a circle for 1 minute but to transport up to 7 people over several hundred miles.
- KentGeek 5y agoFrom those videos, it's difficult to be sure those are full size prototypes and not scale models.
- antoniuschan99 5y agoIt’s all unmanned unfortunately. Still waiting for them to demo at least a dummy payload like Joby did a few months back. Also, Joby, Ehang, and Volocopter are much further ahead in the sense they have done point to point or are building out the factory (same time last year Ehang got hit by being called a scam by Citron, however). From what I read, rumor is the big issue is battery density which is holding Lilium from being viable. We shall see! Also, Joby is most likely the one to look at to track the progress of this air taxi segment since they have just Spac’ed and their aircraft is the most conventional.
- ok_dad 5y ago> Safety should be paramount Interestingly, safety was not even one of the stated "aircraft requirements" from this article: "So, the Lilium aircraft requirements can be summarised as follows: Zero operating emissions Highly efficient cruise phase Vertical take-off & landing for inner city accessibility Low noise for high frequency inner city flight operations and customer acceptance High seat capacity to achieve attractive unit economics and affordable pricing over time Scalability whilst maintaining ground footprint and low noise."
- hef19898 5y agoSince the jet needs certification, safety doesn't necessarily be mebtioned. Without safety no certification. They could have mentioned it so.