New test flight video
 

Two videos.

45kts test flight

Interview with engineer
Mjb

Houston, we have transition
 

Lillium state this is the first transition from hover to wing-borne flight for a full scale, all electric aircraft.

130Kmh, 1200fpm climb.
Transition occurs at 1:30 in the clip.

Mjb

mjb, as I watched the video, I wasn't sure if there was a person in the aircraft. Was that whole flight accomplished remotely?

All Lillium flights to date have been remote. This is due to both pilot safety and pilot mass. They have barely enough battery energy to fly, a pilot’s mass on board would make it almost impossible to leave the ground.

Specs announced
 

Latest video today from CTO Alastair McIntosh, states the range and power density. They apparently have confidence these specs can be achieved, a range of 250km empty operational and 175km max take off weight. They state with a run-on landing the range will increase ( as the hover landing phase uses more juice)

This is the most revealing video thus far, they outlined the finalised design of the production model.
As CTR states, the battery density of existing commercially available technology is a hurdle. In this video they claim new battery tech will deliver the stated range and a full payload, presumably full payload is a person in each seat?
In other videos they mention the production model will have 7 seats and 30 engines (The prototype is full scale 5 seater with 36 engines)
The engine guru states there will be a mechanical connection to adjust flow to optimise energy use between landing and cruise. (10x more energy required for the hover) This is a repeating theme with electric aircraft, hover phase is a means to an end, gas powered helicopters will rule slow orbit tasks until battery density is improved.

To put it in perspective, this is almost the same range as our VW ID4 Life model. (Shorter range battery, less tax)

What about take off?
I don't foresee these ever taking hold as rooftop delivery for pax, but on shorter controlled fields in well regulated air corridors.

A short takeoff could be assisted with a cable tow, similar to gliders, but may not be what passengers might appreciate.

My take-away is: 9 times more power to hover than to cruise. A conventional helicopter is close to 1:1. It starts to worsen with tiltrotors. Then there are those oversized multicopter drones. Did Lilium chose the worst way to hover?

https://aviation.stackexchange.com/q...-when-hovering
i don't think there is a helicopter that burns same fuel in hover as fwd flight ,I am sure ratio is much better than 9 to 1 though
.

You are looking at it the wrong way - It has fixed wings , which is makes it much more efficient in the cruise than a helicopter. So, its not that it is inefficient hovering, it is instead more efficient in forward flight.

Rotors are wing surfaces. You'd be surprise how much lift they produce in forward flight.

They are quite inefficient. The retreating blade is the limiting factor, with only around 40% of it producing useful lift, and at a high AoA with resultant drag.

The advancing blade has to throw away all that beautiful lift it gets from the added forward airspeed, to match the poor old retreating blade.

If both blades were advancing, lotsa lift both sides, no need to worry about retreating sides, hence the ABC test aircraft and Hokums and intermeshing tandems.

They only quote the run on landing in the context of flight endurance for certification for commercial flights.


Mjb

Dissymmetry lift is not 0 lift at retreating side and plus with multi blades also gets the benefit of multi wings instead of a pair. And rotorcraft limits 150kt Vne not only preventing shock wave but also to make sure retreating blade still plane air faster than relative air flow.

Powered flight always been dealing with dilemma of disproportion power requirement between MTOW and cruise. Compound design like lilium is one of those went physically challenged approach to this. If they resort to running takeoff, might as well venture into extreme STOL dropping the expensive vector thrust part. I predict first 10 years into the market operation will be limited from airfield of some sort instead of helipad. And a super STOL might even be a winner.

Never said it was 0 on the retreating side, just that the limit to the aircraft's lift generation is the retreating blade.

Be nice to have an advancing blade on each side, and not have to worry much about the retreater.

Or a conventional helicopter... With these much-awaited (still non-existent) great batteries, right-sized motors... ground effect, translational lift, well-understood flight regimes...
And what about the very high nozzle velocity of those tiny fan-jets? Ultraclean FOD-free Lillipads?

Endurance seems, to me, to be the big problem. With the much bigger power demand with a vertical landing and take off, a go-around would see to be a real deal breaker for certification. As for the machine(s) as extreme STOL, that seems to totally destroy the entire concept of their potential use as some sort of city air taxi. How did the New York rooftop helicopter flights turn out? Probably a good reference. I suspect their business case with the huge number of passengers is a bit off the mark....

Does their claimed range include 30 mins reserve? If not, why would CA$A approve them to operate with less reserve than a real aircraft?

An in depth assessment of Lilium by Leeham News, worth a read.
https://leehamnews.com/2022/07/29/bj...lium-jet-vtol/

Thank you for the article link. Excellent article.