LiliumThe World's First ELECTRIC FLYING JET TAXI

Seeing the Lilium Jet take to the sky and performing sophistica­ted maneuvers, with apparent ease, is testament to the skill and perseverance of our amazing team. We have solved some of the toughest engineering challenges in aviation, to get to this point. The successful test flight programme showed our ground-breaking technical design works exactly, as we have envisioned. We can now turn our focus to designing a 5-seater production aircraft,” revealed Daniel Wiegand, the CEO and co-founder of Lilium - the first electric jet in
the world.
The idea first originated in Daniel's brain in 2013 in Glasgow. In 2015, Daniel formed Lilium with his three co-founders, Sebastian Born, Head of Mechanical Engineering; Patrick Nathen, Head of Calcula­tion & Design; and Matthias Meiner, Head of Flight Control. All the four genius have studied at the Technical University of Munich, Germany. The four were able to build the first 1:2 scaled prototype, named FALCON, and successfully test the flight in the year they established their innovative firm Lilium. It speaks volume of their genius mind.
In less than two years, they have developed the first full-scale prototype Lilium. On the 20th of April 2017, the 'Test Flight' in 'Original Size' takes off to a thunderous applause and much delight! By 2019, the fully functional jet will take off with humans in it. If everything goes as planned, by 2025, one will be able to book a Lilium Jet, the on-demand air transport.
Flying has always been Daniel's passion. At the age of 14, he started soaring high in sky to become a pilot, even before being allowed to drive a car. A creative curious mind, he was always driven by his vision to improve the world and revolutionize people's lives.
He filed his first patent, while he was still in high school. He was ranked among the best, during his studies of aerospace engineering at the Technical University of Munich. Daniel was the recipient of Germany's most recognized 'Tech Competition JugendForscht'. He graduated the masters' program, with a focus on flight propulsion systems.
The maiden test flight series was successfully carried out in Bavaria. The 2-seater Eagle prototype executed a range of complex maneuvers, including its signature mid-air transition, from hover mode to wing-borne forward flight. Daniel revealed, “We are now developing a larger, 5-seater version of our Lilium Jet, designed for 'on-demand air taxi and ridesharing services'. A typical journey with the Lilium Jet will be at least 5 times faster than by car, with even greater efficiencies in busy cities. So a flight from Manhattan to New York's JFK Airport will take around 5 minutes, as compared to the 55-minute ride by car.
Our cities are heading for perpetual gridlock, choked by an ever-growing number of cars — 1.2 billion today and it is estimated to rise up to 2bn, by 2035. Moving to electric vehicles may stem the flow of harmful emissions, but it will not make one bit of difference to congestion.”
“The look and feel of our towns and cities is hugely influenced by our transport infrastructure. The space, we use to park our vehicles, is so much less than the endless roads, which we have to move around them. It changes, when we are able to simply rise up in the air. Today, if we want to travel a distance faster, we have to make our way to airports, which are on the outskirts of our cities. Imagine what will happen, when we have micro landing pads right in the middle of built-up areas! The fastest transport Lilium will become the most accessible and flexible. This is the future, we believe should be open to everyone,” stated Daniel.
“Businesses will spring up around the Lilium Jet, offering air taxi services and other new models of transportation. Lilium passengers of tomorrow are the people using ride-hailing and car sharing apps today, not private jets. It is an exciting vision of the way, our world could be! We hope, when everyone sees the amazing progress we are making on the Lilium Jet, they will understand, we are already well on our way,” enthused the brainchild of the innovative project.

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