Lilium, developer of an all-electric vertical take-off and touchdown (eVTOL) jet, just lately introduced that its know-how demonstrator Phoenix 2 achieved essential wing transition. This implies it’s the first full-size electrical jet plane to transition from hover to wing-borne flight. It is a landmark second for Lilium and for electrical aviation as an entire.
A picture of the Lilium Jet Know-how demonstrator exhibiting essential wing transition. All of the tufts are aligned exhibiting connected circulation.
From a flight physics perspective, finishing transition means the airflow going over the flaps attaches and turns into clean, permitting the elevate to be generated by the wing (as in standard mounted wing plane), reasonably than by the engines (which is the case throughout the hovering part).
Phoenix 2 has now achieved this milestone throughout your complete essential wing whereas, most significantly, remaining secure and behaving as predicted by Lilium’s proprietary Flight Dynamics Mannequin.
Major wing transition is a large step ahead on our path to launch and it validates our Flight Dynamics Mannequin. Full credit score goes to the excellent Lilium crew who labored so exhausting to get us right here, and who stay laser-focused on the remainder of the Flight Take a look at Marketing campaign.
—Matthias Meiner, Phoenix Chief Engineer and Lilium Co-Founder
Lilium will proceed its Flight Take a look at marketing campaign all through the summer season, increasing the flight envelope additional, together with transition of the ahead canards and high-speed flights.
