WHEN YOU THINK OF ELECTRIC VERTICAL takeoff and landing aircraft (eVTOLs), you tend to think of rotor or tiltrotor designs. The Lilium Jet uses a radically different approach when it comes to its propulsion system. Embedded in its articulating canard and main wing are 30 (down from the original 36) small, electrically powered, ducted-fan, single-stage jet engines. These provide the thrust for both vertical and horizontal flight. Based in Munich, Germany, Lilium began work on the Jet in 2015, but the first flight of a scale-model technology demonstration version wasn't achieved until 2019. By 2022 the company had built its fifth-generation technology demonstrator, a design Lilium calls the Phoenix 2. That airplane made its first full-transition flight, in which both the canard and main wing adjusted to move from vertical to wing-borne flight and reached an airspeed of approximately 100 knots.
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