Last year, I read a german newspaper article which mentioned a factory price per unit of about $4m. So I took my calculator and checked what the editor hadn't wanted to see, or to realize. (If you don't speak german, try deepl.com for a free translation. You'll have to split the text into chunks smaller than 5000 characters.) wp.ujf.biz/2021/06/nicht-flugtaxi-lilium-maerchen-wird-immer-abstruser/

Thanks for asking these questions. I am also looking for answers.

look at total operating costs and safety, and you have your answer. regional airports watch out.

You will have to wait, they can barely fly empty. Until they can fly with a passenger that will most likely take a few more years. But now after 7 years at least they are almost in horizontal flight, which is a huge step. Now going at higher speeds horizontal and then with payload compared to person or two will be another big challenge. But I am glad they realized that they will not get anywhere with the current battery technology if they don't reduce the number of fans and make them bigger, simply creating more thrust with the same amount of electrical power and lower RPMs.

@@n1vca you don’t think they’re testing it with a full load capacity? Why else would they be testing it right now? I’m pretty sure you don’t work for the company and I have no idea if they have a full load in the aircraft. So I’m glad you have a lot of opinions.

@@n1vca of course they’ll have to wait. That’s why the words “eventually” & “will” were used.

you probably wont want to fly regularly since it's very expensive to fly compared to driving commercial flying is only viable because of the huge scale and amount of passengers and the inclusion of VIP space

@@juhotuho10 Electric flight is way cheaper. This was done on normal air crafts already and the data is available online.

Yes. In operation one side of the journey will often be an airport or airfield, where you switch to long range transportation. So saving energy by limeting the VTOL to what is needed seems like a smart move. Forward take off and landing will probably feel better as well.

Given the size and range, it looks like it's intended to replace helicopters for local hops, not jets for longer distance trips.

I don’t see how. E aircraft w fixed engines already fall short of commercial requirements in carried energy. VTOL requires even more energy per takeoff, and the energy limits prevent them from doing multiple take offs, in out of remote locations with no recharging, like a regular liquid fueled rotorcraft might do.

They have been who I have backed in so Im looking to get shares before Elon put a Billion dollar takeover on them.

No they don’t. This changes nothing. Nothing they do or will do will change anything. Electric planes are a joke.

It's a beautiful piece of machinery. What a time to be alive

@@heinkeld Yes many spoke similarly of Theranos, WeWork, FTX, Nikola, and long ago of Zeppelins.

nono they specifically require small fans.

I am a volocopter man, but this video did good for Lilium!

I'm not a big fan of Lilium, but I'm many smaller distributed fans of Lilium.

@@mortenlund1418 The problems and suffering of millions of people are increasing daily due to governments and companies’ reliance on mass transport planes because they are large planes and depend on human leadership for the plane So we ask all engineers and technologists in the field of mechanical engineering and artificial intelligence we ask them to cooperate in the design of (self-flying taxis) in order to transport travelers directly from their homes to the homes of their mistresses in distant countries. Here are the problems and suffering due to aircraft that depend on human command 1/The first problem is that the majority of young people cannot travel because of the large financial costs due to the costs of travel procedures such as taxis that depend on human leadership in order to complete travel procedures such as passports, booking airline tickets and air transportation costs In large aircraft that rely on human leadership. 2/The second problem is the long distances, exhaustion, fatigue, transportation crisis, and the search for taxis in order to complete travel procedures. Sometimes taxi drivers refuse to deliver passengers to the required areas. 3/The third problem is the lack of air transportation services for travelers from their homes to the homes of their mistresses. Therefore, young men and women suffer from psychological problems, anxiety, depression and pain after distances because of these three problems. Therefore, we suggest that engineers design Self-flying flying taxis that contain artificial intelligence technology, imaging techniques, and temporary storage of personal card information for travelers in order to send passenger information over the air to aircraft control agencies In government centers and institutions for monitoring, and This is in order to remove the problems of travel procedures for travelers (We so ask you to send these problems, sufferings, and suggestions to technicians, engineers, and officials in mechanical engineering and artificial intelligence departments in institutes and universities)

Progress?

' I was dismissive of the idea of flying taxis at first based on safety concerns. ' Exactly. Really this is the only one of these drone inspired types that even looks reasonable to actually fly in. Heck you could probably disable the front or rear motors and still land aerodynamically if you keep the speed up. Which of course should never happen anyway with all these motors if it's properly redundant. The other designs are basically 'if much of anything ever happens it falls out of the sky like a brick'.

Yeah, no, for a single engine helicopter it's a safety thing, to insure a safe landing after an engine failure. Multi-engine helicopters often take off vertically ( and even backward ), either so it can return to the takeoff point in the case of a loss of one engine, or in some industries ( helicopter air ambulance ) to minimize collision risk with overhead wires. The days of having to do a running takeoff for performance reasons is long over except for the most extreme cases...

@@paulcantrell01451 not saying they can't, but I have the impression that single engine pilots will not do it unless they have pull less power to minimise the risk of failure.

@@SuperYellowsubmarin This is a letter containing six requests and suggestions to engineers in the Department of Computing and Mechanical Engineering We ask engineers to devise engines faster than the scramjet engine in the civil aviation engineering project in order to travel 10,000 kilometers in 15 minutes 2/The second requirement is the design of ultra-high-speed motors that run on clean energy such as electric power and inverted solar cells 3/The second requirement is to transform all new aircraft into robots under the command of artificial intelligence computing and artificial brain cells This is in order for the flying taxi companies to provide individual services to the traveler in order to transport the traveler from his home to the home of his beloved in very distant countries. 4/The fourth requirement is the establishment of an alliance and cooperation between officials and workers in civil aviation engineering, officials and workers in supercomputing projects and artificial brain cells. 5/The fifth requirement is the development of artificial intelligence devices such as supercomputing and artificial brain cells in order to know the geographical locations of cities, roads and human languages ​​and to respond to the demands of the owners of flying robots 6/And the sixth condition is to conduct several tests in artificial intelligence in order to control high-speed supersonic aircraft, such as the scramjet engine, in order to slow down the flight speed more and more when landing and approaching the desired geographical location. (Please convey these six requests to engineers in aerospace design and mechanical engineering in universities, institutes and factories)

@@user-uf5vk2ey7z The fuck?

Helicopters don't have ducts. This can go vertical with less resistance than trying to go diagonal due to physics of a ducted propeller. Unducted vtols can do rolling take-offs but ducted vtols are best to just go vertical.

Not sure I understand why this is worth the trade off.. this adds significant weight to the design of the landing gear, no?

@@tewrgh wheels give the aircraft the ability move around on the ground much more efficiently than hovering (which is pretty power-hungry). For example, the Sikorsky executive helicopter has wheels that allow it to move around a helicopter without having to hover from place to place. Sometimes the heli will do a "rolling landing" to use the ground to carry the weight as quickly as possible. Check this out: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/qeBleax7vsuvgps.html Also, flying forward (using the wings to support the weight of the aircraft) saves the batteries so you can extend the range significantly by essentially gliding into a landing. For example, the F35 is a VTOL aircraft, but pilots' preference is to take and land going forward - even if is a "short" takeoff that uses some of the VTOL capability. Check this out: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/htKVnNyDsNHJZIU.html and... kzfaq.info/get/bejne/nrVloL2pxs_dhYU.html

@@davidallyn1818 Isn't there a significant weight difference between landing gear capable of slow taxiing, and landing gear capable of sustaining a horizontal landing?

@@tewrgh I'm not an aircraft engineer, so I can't give you an exact answer. But I can say that generally the weight of the landing gear is predicated on the weight of the aircraft and how quickly the weight needs to be absorbed to not stress the air frame. Check this out: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/bdhgpqWZnc3cmKc.html I'm sure the designers will decide the correct weight ratio to give them a smooth touchdown while also keeping it light.

I don't think Lilium has EVER been portrayed as a personal aircraft. The goal has always been short-distance people hauling, i.e., air taxis.

as batteries improve that will double, triple... etc...

@@Mora41 We're already reaching the limit on energy density for lithium batteries. Nothing is going to double or triple unless some completely new battery technology gets invented.

@@Majima_Nowhere it’s already happening

that adds a lot of complexity, especially on landing...

Dude, you must have slipped as decimal- your 5,500 pound battery weight estimate is a factor greater than anything suggested.

@@mavigogun Should be easy for to spot my mistake then. But just as reference, the 75kWh Tesla battery is 480kg. The energy budget in the video is ten times which would make the battery 10 times more heavy.

@@wdaehn It is inconsistent to use the power density of a Tesla battery instead of that selected for the aircraft.

@@mavigogun I did not. I used the W/kg given in the video, thus come to 2500kg. A Tesla battery would be 4t. Any other idea?

@@wdaehn The 6 minutes you've budgeted for hovering flight is inconsistent with the designed parameter of 10 second vertical take off at max weight and 45 second landing. For ease of calculation, let's stretch that to a full minute- or 1/6th of your estimate. Why is this important? As we know, hovering flight requires vastly more power- about 10 times that of horizontal transit. Your excess of 5 minutes of hovering equates to 50 minutes of horizontal transit flight time.

@Mike Hoyer if they plan on commercial flying, then they probably have to, sooner or later ... de-icing boots: are also often inflated using exhaust gas, same problem. You could carrier an Aircompressor but those have vibrations and also take energy to run

This is correct. A conventional aircraft will use its hot bleed air from the engines to heat up its wing leading edges in order to prevent ice accumulation over the wings. These aircrafts have their engines mounted under their wings, leaving its entire surface area as the main lift generating force. An airplane produces most of its lift from the upper surface of the wing. The lilium has its ducted fans motors mounted over its wings. Therefore this type of design will prevent any ice formation on its leading edges due to the strong motor fan suction of the air and its particles that would normally adhere to these surfaces.

Also, the Lilium’s ability to change altitude by ascending or descending rapidly, will prevent any chances of ice accumulation over a given period of time should any severe icing be encountered on any critical surfaces

@@ollie5881 yes but the suction is only where the engines are, but about 1/3 of the wing does not have engines --> no suction --> ice. Also the body could also form ice, which increases drag and lowers the range

@@ollie5881 help me out, how does ascending or sinking reduce ice?

@Will Swift Lilium will be flown by a human pilot, it’s already been confirmed

haha I was thinking the same thing... skip the comical "certify

@Will Swift it would be hard to do with insurance... the insurance company would need engineers better than your engineers to analyze the design and assess the risk, or they would have to fall back on regulatory guidelines.

@Will Swift there wouldn't be any historical data at this point, it's pre-certification.

As Wilbur and Orville demonstrated, iterative design and experimentation are essential to advancing from concept to flight- Chinese competition or no.

@Will Swift certificate of airworthiness

Somebody piss in your cornflakes this morning?

Too late Azul and Netjet are ahead of you And Lilium plans on becoming an airline as well

Choppers use less power in forward flight than in hover

it needs 250 kW for cruise. Read that again.

you need to multiply 250kW (not 250 watt) x 0.4 hours (since it will take ~24mins or 0.4 hours to fly a distance of 100km), which equals to 100 kWh of battery capacity. If you want to fly 175km, have 75km reserves and take off and land you need approximately 330(?) kWh of battery capacity which means the batteries weigh around 1 to 1.5 tons.

@@kingplays5369 ah, thanks. I knew that couldn't be right. I assumed that they displayed watt/kg - since that's what they do on the left side. And of course you are right: Spedd is way above 100 km/h and that needs to be accounted for.

@@chrispyak You‘re welcome. 3 years ago I could‘ve been the one asking your question, so I‘m happy I could help you out

Yep- intra-city and megalopolis hops, as well as from air terminals to metro destinations. In the US, this would amount to 83% of the population.