These days, it seems like everyone is building their own electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft. The race is clearly on to develop these vehicles in a bid to anticipate the next major sea change in how we get around cities, but what we’ve seen so far of these vehicles is usually quick clips and heavily edited highlight reels. Lilium, a Munich-based startup building their own urban air mobility vehicles, is showing off a lot more than that today.
The footage above is actually from a test conducted at the beginning of October, and Lilium says it’s now completed that phase of testing and is working on phase two. But this look at its Jet in action is an illuminating three minutes, showing the aircraft going through its vertical take-off and landing process, as well as flying around and making turns before returning to its origin point.
This is a relatively low-speed demonstration compared to what the Lilium Jet can achieve with its unique propulsion method – the company has flown at speeds of up to 100 km/h (~60 mph) since, and is also working on moving the flaps for its jets to a full flat angle, which should help it move horizontally even faster. Ultimately, Lilium will look to use its jet (with a pilot controlling the vehicle at least for the first few years of operation) in an air taxi service ferrying people around cities.
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