Let’s just cut to the chase straight away without any silly introduction. The Lilium jet you see in the pictures here is an all-electric micro-plane designed for urban air mobility. Built with an aim to connect people and places within a single city and a little further, the Lilium Jet will be launched in 2025. Upon introduction, it will be able to travel up to 300km in one hour on a single charge! And it isn’t all science fiction as a prototype of the 5-seater aircraft has just flown at speeds in excess of 100 km/h.
Now, you might ask what’s the big deal? To which, we’d like to ask, when was the last time you saw a fixed-wing aircraft take-off and land vertically? Takes you back to the times of the Harrier jump jet, isn’t it? This tiny wonder makes it possible by burning the rule book and then throwing it away. A tilt-jet aircraft, it has 36 engines mounted on its flaps which work on the concept of thrust vectoring (like the Su-30) and swivel into a vertical position during take-off and landing. With its small form, the aircraft won’t require large airfields and can fly away or into a rooftop even, if it’s adequately sized.
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The Lilium Jet features two fixed wings, one main wing at the rear of the aircraft, which measures about 11m across, and a ‘canard’ wing at the front of the aircraft, so-called because of its resemblance to a duck. The canard wings each have two flaps and the main wings have four. We mount three of our pioneering all-electric jet engines on each flap, allowing them to pivot and change the direction of the thrust they create. The flaps can each move independently. Since there is no tail or ailerons, the engine nacelles perform the function of aerodynamic control surfaces and act like the ailerons and elevator of a normal aircraft.
Each of the 36, uniquely designed engines are fully electric and do not make the kind of noise we associate with a helicopter or a commercial jet engine. The best part, the air sucked in by the blades is just as pure when it gets in and when it’s pushed out. There’s no tail, no rudder, gearboxes or hydraulic components and the only moving part on this aircraft is the engine. The makers did think of fancy, and as a result, even fitted the thing with gull-wing doors.
Although the safest mode of travel till date, air travel still gives many the jitters. To address that, the Lilium Jet. like commercial airliners, will be certified to standards set by the European Aviation Safety Agency and the Federal Aviation Authority. Built on the principle of ultra-redundancy, all its 36 engines function independently and the Jet will be fitted with a triple-redundant flight computer. All this will mean that safety won’t be compromised by the failure of any one component.