Lilium looks to resume flight tests in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic as restrictions on business operations are eased around the world. The German-based company has been working from home for the past two months and has been looking for ways to resume operations while maintaining social distancing among other preventative measures. Lilium currently expects flight testing to begin in “a few months.”

Over the past several months, Lilium has been producing its second technology demonstrator aircraft, which will incorporate some design changes from the first prototype flown in 2019, fly at faster speeds, and be able to transition from vertical lift-off to fixed-wing cruise flight. Lilium aims to have the model fully certified by 2025. This latest edition of the Lilium Jet can seat up to five passengers.

In a recent presentation, Lilium’s Chief Program Officer Yves Yemsi demonstrated the company’s implementation of new management processes, including stage gate reviews at its company and across the supply chain. This concept has been successfully used elsewhere in the aerospace industry in tracking the overall technological readiness of a flight vehicle and its systems at organizations like NASA, Boeing, Airbus, and more. “We don’t want to lose quality at any stage so we are putting controls in place at all levels,” explained Yemsi, who formerly held a senior quality and program role with Airbus.

Why it matters: Earlier this year, Lilium completed another round of funding, generating over $240M bringing its fundraising total to $340M. The company has equipped itself with more than 450 employees, 35 of which hold PhDs, and many of which come from prestigious aerospace companies. Alongside its German competitor, Volocopter, the company has amassed an impressive amount of capital and talent. With restrictions easing around the world in light of COVID-19, TransportUP expects to see Lilium back in the spotlight as it looks to resume flight testing.

Read more news about Lilium here.

Just six months after unveiling the latest version of its prototype, Munich based air taxi company Lilium has released footage of its five-passenger jet making the transition from vertical to horizontal flight:

The Lilium jet can seat 5 passengers, fly at 186mph, is all-electric, and  has a range of nearly 200 miles. Lilium plans to build not just the aircraft itself, but an entire urban and regional air mobility system in Europe that will allow people to fly anywhere at the tap of a button.

Lilium has been working on its jet air taxi since 2015, and flew the first two-seater prototype in 2017. Since then, the company has gained great prestige by hiring former executives from Gett, Tesla, Airbus, Audi, BMW, and Rolls Royce Aerospace. Lilium has established its software engineering headquarters in London, and is currently seeking to raise an additional $500 million.

The latest prototype, which exhibited speeds of over 100km/h earlier this week, features a total of 36 ducted funs, which are built into the wing itself. During vertical take-off, these point straight down, and then tilt slowly upward to become flush with the wing and provide horizontal thrust as in a tradition airplane. Because these small motors are electric, they feature some of the best power-to-weight ratios in the entire aviation industry, with a total of 2000 horsepower available.

The Lilium Jet’s tilting fans

“The Lilium Jet continues to meet our expectations, delivering excellent in-flight performance and remarkably smooth transition from vertical to horizontal flight. ”         –Leandro Bigarella, Head of Flight Testing. 

This test marks the completion of the Lilium Jet’s first phase of testing, which has consisted of over 100 ground and air tests. The company will now move into the next stage of testing where the aircraft will endure higher speed operations and eventually attain certification.

“It’s been thrilling to watch the Lilium Jet progress so rapidly and to see our first flying taxi manufacturing facility. We are taking tangible and concrete steps towards making our vision of regional air mobility a reality and we’re doing it on time.” –Daniel Wiegand, co-founder and CEO

With this latest announcement, Lilium has also announced the completion of its first large-scale manufacturing facility, which is 3000 square feet. It has also begun construction of a much larger facility, and hired Yves Yemsi, former Head of Program Quality for the Airbus A350, as Chief Program Officer.

Lilium plans to launch commercial services in multiple cities around the world by 2025. To learn more about the Jet and its mission, visit the Lilium website.

Why it’s important: Many industry experts have named the transition from vertical to horizontal flight as one of the greatest engineering challenges in VTOL design. Lilium has now overcome this important barrier, marking its jet as one of the highest-performing eVTOL prototypes in the industry. With this latest announcement, Lilium continues to make timely progress toward its planned 2025 commercial launch.

Hanwha Systems CEO Kim Yeon-chul signed a memorandum of understanding on July 3rd in Seoul with Korea Airports Corporation President Son Chang-wan to partner on the development of UAM enabling technologies, including passenger boarding services, end-to-end integration, infrastructure planning, and airspace development tailored specifically for the commercial deployment of on-demand aerial mobility services.

Hanwha Systems UAM Conceptualization. Image // Hanwha Systems

Hanwha Systems previously established themselves within the aerial mobility sphere last year after investing substantially in Overair, a spinoff of the Uber Elevate Partnering Karem Aircraft company. Korea Airports Corporation intends to bring the construction and architectural experience commensurate with the firms’ management of 14 airports in South Korea. They also manage the Korea Civil Aviation Training Center. The partnership is also opportune as the integration between last-mile trips and transfers from fixed wing aircraft can be streamlined as development efforts are undertaken by KAC.

The MoU represents the expansion of aerial mobility frameworks in Asia, as nearby countries such as China continue to advance the progress and breadth of aerial mobility offerings that will soon be available to the public on an on-demand basis.

Kim Yeon-chul is quoted at the press conference stating that Hanwha Systems is to become a “global UAM solutions provider” by the year 2025.

Why it’s important: Hanwha and KAC represent a powerful partnership that allows for considerable experience to be leveraged from both air frame development and infrastructure know-how fields. Additionally, this MoU limits the exposure of each company within the aerial mobility industry and will allow for a more seamless integration of aerial mobility flight paths and vertiports at Korean airports already under management by KAC. Additionally, Hanwha System’s previous investments in UAM airframe design and development companies has allowed them to gain experience while limiting the large capital expenditures required to stand up a company from scratch.

Source // Business Korea, Korea IT Times, Hanwha Systems Press Release

Crown Consulting‘s vision of the future aerial mobility market

In 2018, NASA selected Crown Consulting to aid in understanding the potential barriers to creating the aerial mobility industry. After creating that study, Crown is now extending its analysis by partnering with QSS (Quantitative Scientific Solutions) to understand how eVTOL ride quality might affect community acceptance. While Crown Consulting will facilitate the analysis, QSS will assist in collecting the and assembling the relevant data.

According to QSS and Crown Consulting, past work has related passenger comfort to noise and vibration, but no measure has yet been developed relating acceptance to the combination of noise, vibration, and vehicle motion. Since eVTOLs will certainly have different motion dynamics from helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft, QSS and Crown consider these motion dynamics a key variable in determining the probability of community acceptance. Research and data collection will focus gaining an understanding of how future passengers may react to new motion dynamics.

QSS is a scientific and technical consulting and analytics firm based in Arlington, VA. Its mission is to provide creative solutions to the most challenging scientific problems through hard data, and it utilizes the most advanced technologies available to conduct analysis.

Crown Consulting’s Chief Technology Officer, Dr. Tom Edwards, commented, “This work will enable resolution of a major barrier to successful implementation of UAM.” Crown considers itself an expert in providing data and analytics to both private and government organizations. Read the full study so far provided by Crown Consulting to NASA here.

Why it’s important: With the advanced data collection and analysis technologies now available through companies like QSS, it has become possible to create deep understandings of how new innovations in air travel might affect people in the near future. Through partnering with QSS, Crown Consulting will be able to understand with a fair degree of certainty how people will react to eVTOLs’ new motion dynamics before aircraft even enter the flight testing stages or manufacturing stages. This information can help drive both vehicle designs and government regulations.

Ascent Urban Air Mobility, a new aerial mobility company, has announced that it will commence services in Thailand by the end of this year. Although Ascent currently uses traditional helicopters, its aerial mobility business model follows those that will soon come with advanced electric VTOLS. Ascent first launched in the Philippines around May of 2019.

Ascent Founders Darren Tng and Lionel Sinai-Sinelnikoff

Although charter helicopters have existed in Thailand (mainly for tourism), Ascent’s offering will now serve transportation needs between major activity centers such as Bangkok, Chonburi, and Rayong, and leisure destinations such as Hua Hin or Pattaya. Unlike any other helicopter service in the area, Ascent offers by-the-seat booking through a smartphone app. Ascent’s mission is to enable busy customers to skip traffic and reach remote destinations with ease and now (with the advent of COVID-19) minimized physical contact. By serving these hubs, Ascent aims at contributing to the growth of businesses and the economy in line with the Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC), Thailand 4.0, and Smart City initiatives. Seat prices will start at about the equivalent of $250 USD.

Passengers on board an Ascent Urban Air Mobility Aircraft. Each seat will start at $250 per ticket.

Lionel Sinai-Sinelnikoff, one of the founders of Ascent, said, “The dynamism of Bangkok combined with this new context (COVID-19), makes mobility a great challenge for the business community, commuters, and tourists. This in turn effects the economy, the environment, and people’s well-being. In addition, public economic initiatives like the EEC require enhanced mobility solutions. With Ascent, we believe we can elevate mobility to the skies to better connect locations and skip traffic seamlessly in a safe and more affordable manner. We are excited to open this new chapter of Ascent with partners such as Advance Aviation and SFS Aviation, which have driven the industry in Thailand for so long and will ensure our users with the highest operational and safety standards.”

Part of the Ascent Urban Air Mobility team

Why it’s import: Although other urban air mobility companies based in the U.S use a similar business model to Ascent (such as BLADE Urban Air Mobility and Uber Copter), Ascent’s launch in Thailand will make the country one of Asia’s first to host aerial mobility services. Ascent’s customer sourcing and management as well as fleet management softwares will likely plug into more advanced electric aircraft once they become available.