German based aircraft manufacturer, Lillium, has an electric powered, five passenger, vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) jet aircraft. It has completed the first phase of flight testing.

+++ Lillium Homepage +++

Impressive!

Wow, 36 engines! Even considering redundancy that would be FAA maintenance compliance nightmare wouldn't it? Is it really a "jet" in the traditional sense or just a series of air fans?

Jeff

I wondered if it REALLY is a jet aircraft or a bunch of fans too. I think it is a jet because the engines use vanes to compress air instead of propellers to push or pull air.

I wonder about managing the torque created when all those engines pivot during the transition from vertical to horizontal flight. That has been the most troublesome part of the flight for both the Harrier jet aircraft and Osprey propeller aircraft. The flight test video shows the ascent transition which was very smooth but doesn't show the descent transition.

It's an interesting craft. It's going to be exciting to follow its development.

I want one

A big Drone !!.

I've been waiting for products like this to emerge...

I remember years ago there was a push for pedal-powered ultra-light flight, with cash awards for those whose pedal-powered craft could meet certain benchmarks. The problem at that time was that even with geared pedal power similar to that used in good bikes, it still took an incredibly powerful person to supply the pedal power.

But now that E-bikes are common and the motors and batteries are being mass-produced (bringing the prices down and the capability up) such vehicles are sure to be revisited by engineers. E-bike technology solves the problem of a human having to supply the necessary torque to move weight a certain distance.

The combination of good gearing and light weight battery powered electric motors opens a lot of doors. Its interesting to watch technology progress.

Thanks for posting such an interesting video, Jim.

a quick search on youtube shows a lot of new products already...

[video:youtube]https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=electric+ultralight+aircraft+[/video]

Dog gone it Pat, you sent me down the YouTube rabbit hole. One video leads to another and another and another and another and ...

speaking of solo flight technology rabbit trails... here's another one:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=paramotor

Thanks, I'll be back next week....