All electric VTOL

[oldr_n_wsr]

Way cool:

Watch Munich Startup Lilium Test All-Electric Flying Car, Lilium Jet
Denisse Moreno
International Business TimesApril 20, 2017

Uber, Google and Airbus have reportedly been working on flying cars, but the Munich startup Lilium has beat them to it. The company announced Thursday it has tested its all-electric flying car, Lilium Jet, in Germany.

Lilium, founded in 2015, said it has completed a series of “rigorous flight tests” on its flying car, “the first zero-emission electric plane capable of Vertical Take-Off and Landing [VTOL].”

The two-seater prototype, controlled remotely by a pilot, performed a successful in-flight transition from hover mode to wing-borne forward flight, Lilium said.

“Seeing the Lilium Jet take to the sky and performing sophisticated maneuvers with apparent ease is testament to the skill and perseverance of our amazing team,” Lilium co-founder and CEO Daniel Wiegand said in a statement. “We have solved some of the toughest engineering challenges in aviation to get to this point.”

The startup is now developing a five-seat model of the Jet for on-demand air taxi and ride-hailing services.

“The combination of energy efficient flight and minimal ground infrastructure will enable passenger flights with comparable pricing to normal car taxis over the same distance,” Lilium said in a press release.



lilium-landing-pad-rooftop

A trip with Lilium’s flying car will be at least five times faster than taking a car, the company said. A flight from Manhattan to New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport would take about five minutes with Lilium Jet, compared to nearly an hour by car. The Jet can travel more than 300 kilometers (186.4 miles), with a top speed of 300 kilometers per hour.

The lightweight flying-car is powered by 36 electric jet engines mounted on its wings via 12 moveable flaps. The Jet is 100 percent electrically powered, which means it won’t pollute the air and could be a solution to reduce pollution emitted by gasoline- and diesel-powered vehicles in towns and cities. The Jet doesn’t need much space to take off either, since it launches vertically, and will make less noise than a motorcycle.

Lilium released a video showing the vertical take off of the flying car, which then accelerates forward.

A price tag for the Jet has not yet been revealed.

I hope the youtube link works. If not, go to the article and the video is there.


link
https://www.yahoo.com/news/watch-munich ... 24564.html

[RayThom]

I'm a tad skeptical about this test flight. It looks to be a CGI production. It would be more convincing if it had more extensive "legitimate" media coverage.

It's a great concept but I ain't buying it... yet.

Show me.

[Bicycle Bill]

I'm skeptical about the whole concept, because I don't trust the operational or maintenance abilities of most of my fellow drivers/would-be pilots.  The YouTube videos are full of the carnage and calamity caused when the ordinary public is allowed to operate a vehicle that needs to be controlled only two dimensions, and has the built-in safety factor that it is already on the ground in case power or some other significant part like a wheel assembly fails.  And one needs only to walk through a parking lot to realize that a lot of the vehicles on the road today are not, shall we say, maintained at the peak of performance.

Now add a third dimension to the mix, along with the unforgiving nature of gravity, and I foresee so many of these things dropping out of the sky — with predictably fatal results — that it's going to look like the aftermath of the RAF vs the Luftwaffe in the Battle for Britain.

-"BB"-