Lilium Jet eVTOL Project Inches Towards EASA Certification

Another day, another utopian eVTOL project taking flight. Some are immensely credible (others are— less so), but this one is inching closer to “immensely credible” itself by the day. German startup Lilium has taken a key step towards certification of its eVTOL aircraft this week when they formally submitted means of compliance (MoC) proposals to the EASA.

Industry-watchers at FutureFlight are reporting that Lilium has submitted a complete set of MoC proposals to EASA (European Union Aviation Safety Agency), which will now consider whether it can accept the MoC plan as the basis on which to establish that the Lilium “Jet” will conform to the airworthiness requirements of EASA Special Condition eVTOL rules.

The company made waves in the business world last summer, when it announced a $1 billion deal to sell 220 of its electric VTOL aircraft to Brazilian airliner Azul, which would use the Lilium Jet for several regional routes. “The aircraft we’re planning to launch will do 175 miles an hour,” Alex Asseily, Lilium’s chief strategy officer, told CNBC in August. “The range will be 155 miles.”

It Definitely Looks Fast

The Lilium Jet can be configured for passengers OR cargo, which could make it useful for commercial delivery services and in emergency relief situations, where its vertical take-off and landing capabilities would come in handy.

It’s worth noting, though, that while the MoC proposals are a key step, Lilium is actually a bit behind its initial public schedule, with certification that had been promised by 2024 now pushed as far back as late 2025. In a blog post released to coincide with a supplier conference last week, Lilium founder and CEO Daniel Wiegand blamed the delay on, “the current status of design activities to develop the safest possible aircraft, our discussions with regulators, and even taking into account the continued supply chain disruption.”

This month, Lilium resumed flight testing with its fifth-generation “technology demonstrator,” which is somewhat smaller than the proposed Lilium Jet passenger plane. The company calls this aircraft the Phoenix 2, and is now flying at the Atlas Flight Test Center at Villacarrillo in Spain. The company has plans to add another vehicle to the test campaign in the next few months.

You can check out the Lilium Jet prototype in early flight testing, below, then let us know what you think of the company’s plans to revolutionize short-range air travel in the comments section at the bottom of the page.

Lilium Jet in Flight

Source | Images: Lilium.