
Regional Air Mobility: Why we don’t plan to operate flights under 20km - kayza
https://lilium.com/newsroom-detail/why-regional-air-mobility
======
looping__lui
I love innovation and stuff. Radical ideas.

But the aviation market is one of the most heavily regulated - bureaucracy
beyond comprehension.

Did you ever wonder why Piper or Cessna airplanes look EXACTLY what they did
50 years ago? And why the engines used in these planes (e.g., Lycoming) are
referred to as “Lycosaurus”!?

If you go for a sightseeing flight with a local aeroclub - you will find the
pilot spending 30min pre-checking the aircraft, checking the weather, reading
NOTAMS etc. Not to mention the potentially pretty intensive communication with
ATC et al. required to make sure everybody stays safe.

Getting a pilot license is magnitudes more work than getting a drivers
license, proficiency has to be continuously demonstrated, maintaining
airworthiness of an airplane isn’t exactly cheap either and pretty heavily
regulated.

And all that should be “automated”, certified and approved?

Not saying things can’t be automated - but no shit, the spark plugs in a
Cessna are like 50$ each for that “aviation certificate”...

Even if there ARE rules and guidelines how to certify autonomous vehicles like
that - like how does anybody imagine that a novel aerial vehicle like this
actually IS CERTIFIED within a lifetime?

Pilots still walk around a multi-million $ fighter jet or aircraft equipped
with the most sophisticated avionics because “a bird nest in the engine intake
is hard to detect and difficult to resolve mid flight”.

Investing in one of the most heavily regulated, difficult to scale and
extremely expensive to operate industries is brave... Even more so when this
industry is low margin and “kept dying every couple of years”...

~~~
lisper
Private pilot here. Yes, aviation innovates slowly, but it's not nearly as bad
as you make it sound. Cirrus aircraft have been a game changer, as has the
Garmin G1000 avionics. I can fly just about any instrument approach entirely
on autopilot. The only thing I have to touch is the throttle and the flaps. I
get real-time traffic information via ADS-B, real-time weather via Nexrad. I
do my flight planning in five minutes using Foreflight on an iPad. It is all
pretty awesomely cool actually.

It's not installed in the plane I fly, but Garmin's auto-landing system was
recently certified for emergency use.

[https://generalaviationnews.com/2020/05/19/garmin-
autoland-c...](https://generalaviationnews.com/2020/05/19/garmin-autoland-
certified-for-general-aviation-aircraft/)

~~~
dreamcompiler
Lots of innovation has happened in aircraft electronics. The powerplant? Not
so much. Most light aircraft engine designs are four or more decades old, and
the only ones cheap enough for a moderately-priced aircraft have carburetors.
I don't think you can even buy a car these days with a carburetor, but with
airplanes they're still standard, even though fuel injection makes a lot more
sense in an airplane than in a car. You can get airplanes with fuel-injected
engines, but a fuel-injected Lycoming IO-390 engine (like you'd find in a
Cirrus) will cost about $27,000. Used. Just for the engine. You can get a
decent car for $27,000, and it will absolutely have a fuel-injected engine.
Likely a turbocharger as well. And the car's engine will produce a lot more
horsepower.

Oh and you'll have to fuel the airplane with avgas which costs $5/gallon and
contains lead, and you have to wonder WTF??

There's no technical reason aircraft engines cannot be turbocharged, fuel-
injected, fueled with regular unleaded gas, and cheap. Aircraft engines should
have followed the innovation advancements that have happened in car engines,
but they haven't. This is probably because of regulation, monopoly power,
liability, and a host of other reasons, but as an engineer I find the
situation ridiculous.

~~~
drewm1980
Wow, hearing that rich people are still allowed to dump lead into the
atmosphere above our heads just ruined my morning. What things of non-
entertainment value would we loose if we just banned leaded fuel overnight?
Are crop dusters burning lead while spraying pesticides over our food crops?

~~~
tjohns
You don't need to be rich to fly. You can buy a older used aircraft for the
cost of a nice car. Sometimes cheaper. (Note: Not the Cirrus they're talking
about upthread.)

They're working on replacing leaded fuel. The challenge is mostly regulatory,
since they won't certify any of the replacements until they're sure it's 100%
safe. It's still a work in progress.

As for what you'd lose: Search and rescue, medical transport (both commercial
and volunteer), transport of blood samples for lab testing, high resolution
aerial photography on your smartphone, powerline inspection to prevent forest
fires, crop dusting. I could go on...

~~~
NikkiA
Search and rescue is almost soley helicopter traffic, and _very_ rarely
requires leaded fuel (a turbine doesn't need leaded, it can run on it, but
it'll run just fine on unleaded too). The number of places still using non-
turbine helicopters for anything other than training and very light
sightseeing is very small, probably close to 0% worldwide.

Same is true of Medical Transport except possibly for Australia where light
aircraft are used more frequently than turbine helicopters.

Same for powerline inspection, although there _could_ be a couple of companies
using Robinsons somewhere I guess.

~~~
dreamcompiler
Search and rescue in the USA is mostly done by the Civil Air Patrol, which
almost solely uses fixed-wing aircraft.

------
ordinaryradical
This to me is a true moonshot and venture-worthy idea. Some of these concepts
may be technically or economically infeasible—it's a major risk—but the pay-
off for human wellbeing is phenomenal. I wish we celebrated more companies
like these, but it seems like most of them are met with (well-earned)
skepticism rather than genuine curiosity.

The world of atoms is harder than software, but it's awaiting disruptions like
these.

~~~
tmh79
I dunno man, im getting kind of jaded as I get older. "True moonshot" to me
seems more like cheap clean water for everyone, or a real way to sequester
carbon, not a way for rich folks to get to their country cottages faster.

~~~
runarberg
True. This kind of technology would be a game changer for poorer rural
communities with limited infrastructure and vast distances. Places like
Greenland or East Congo. But this article did not mention this benefit at all.
All they seem to care about is getting rich people between places they already
can.

~~~
renewiltord
This is just basic marketing. You sell to the guy who can buy.

The Tesla company was started in 2003 to productionize the AC tzero. In 2005,
the Roadster was conceived as the product it became and Tesla and Lotus tied
up.

The Secret Master Plan arrived in 2006. So yeah, that's just how it goes.
Because there is an army of people who lament things targeted at rich people,
but that army does not participate in progress, either in money or in sweat.

The intelligent futurist always ignores them because they contribute nothing.

~~~
runarberg
That makes the current state of our humanity kind of sad, doesn’t it.

It is also not true. There are numerous innovations targeted for the
betterment of us all. The three-point seat-belt is a quick one that comes to
mind. The field of medicine has tax funded research innovating at a remarkable
frequency, where the target beneficiaries is all humans who need it. Expensive
infrastructures like roads, train networks, electric grids, and trash disposal
systems are build around the world for everyone who needs, not just the once
who can afford it.

But we do lament things that are target at rich people, because these rich
people are literally destroying the world with their over-consumption. They
certainly don’t deserve more nice things that the rest of the world is paying
for.

~~~
renewiltord
It's always been the case. We linked the world via trade in search of making a
rich man's food taste better. I don't think it's sad. I think it's wonderful.
The rich 'subsidize' progress for everyone.

All of the things you mention (except the 3-point seatbelt, perhaps) have a
story just like this one with some guy saying things just like this guy and a
veritable shower of lament with no effort behind it.

~~~
runarberg
> The rich 'subsidize' progress for everyone

This sounds like an HN version of _trickle down theory_ which I thought had
been thoroughly debunked by economists.

It’s funny but, I’ve always been under the impression that the opposite were
true in standard economics, the poor—with their labour—are the once who
subsidize the rich. I find it hard to believe that the economics of progress
are any different. Let me draw up some napkin economics:

Scenario A: The poor pay disproportionaly higher taxes then the rich. Taxes
pay for infrastructure, education, etc. The rich uses the infrastructure and
the higher skilled workforce to work on a thing. The rich get richer on that
thing. The rich give them self a higher percentage of the profit then the
workers or the state. The rich just got richer because of subsidy from the
poor.

Scenario B: The poor pay disproportionaly higher taxes then the rich. Taxes
pay for infrastructure, education, etc. A team of PhD students (the poor) and
their assistance (the poor) spend thousands of work-hours to figure out how a
thing can be improved. A company uses their findings free of charge to deliver
a better product. The company does not give the students and their assistance
a fair share of the profits. The company pays their shareholders (the rich)
the majority of the profits. The rich just got richer because of subsidy from
the poor.

~~~
dzhiurgis
Sir, this is not reddit.

------
legitster
> With a range of up to 300km (186 miles), we’ll be able to focus on
> connecting entire regions with high-speed transport, rather than trying to
> persuade you that we’re quicker than a crosstown journey on an underground
> train or bike.

As an air-taxi skeptic, I have to say I am refreshed to see a startup actually
spend more than five minutes figuring out the market fitness problem. Focusing
on bypassing geographic barriers seems to be a much better use case.

I am still pretty skeptical on the idea overall. Everyone drools over the
travel times and not enough on the confounding factors. Getting to and from
the taxi. Dealing with regulations. We can't even make public transit in dense
urban cores work - why would this much harder idea work?

I find it amusing that one of their examples of bypassing noise ordinance
restrictions is to follow existing infrastructure routes. The irony seems lost
on them.

~~~
divbzero
> _I find it amusing that one of their examples of bypassing noise ordinance
> restrictions is to follow existing infrastructure routes. The irony seems
> lost on them._

Yeah, I noticed this too in their depiction of a hypothetical Palo Alto
vertiport. The caption “high-throughput vertiport with intermodal last-mile
connectivity” made me think it would ideally be located by the Caltrain
station, but the road in the illustration didn’t look like El Camino and there
were no train tracks in sight. I later realized during their “low noise
footprint” discussion that they were depicting a vertiport located towards
East Palo Alto and using 101 as the flight corridor.

My guess is they recognize the irony but are trying to strike a judicious
balance.

------
pdelbarba
This isn't going to be certified and allowed for part 135 operations inside at
least a decade. Boeing can't keep their jets from crashing due to simple trim
control software, what makes anyone think the FAA is going to go along with
these flights over densely populated areas?

This feels a lot like when everyone was scrambling to start helicopter taxi
services which promptly crashed and burned... Helicopters were a mature and
well understood technology then, but the realities of operating in urban areas
under a variety of weather conditions just doesn't allow for these services to
be A) safe or B) economical.

~~~
baxtr
Maybe that’s exactly what someone said about cars in 1900. BTW: In 2019, 39k
people died in car crashes, in the US alone.

~~~
pdelbarba
You can throw around statistics but the reality is aircraft receive far more
scrutiny. Nobody wants to sit helplessly as one of these things flies them
into the side of a skyscraper or watch as one falls out of the sky onto them.

Is that fair? Maybe?

Is that reality? Yes.

This isn't like the invention of cars. We have had all manner of airplanes for
over 100 years and know how they work. This is like the NYC helicopter taxi
boom in the late 70s and 80s where a number of fiery and high profile crashes
put an end to the industry.

~~~
nouveaux
Maybe. To me, the cost is a bigger factor. If you can show helicopters have
the same fatality rate, but has the same price of an Uber, I'm sure a ton of
people would use it.

It seems to me price is the larger barrier for most people when it comes to
air travel.

~~~
bobthepanda
The problem is damage to others.

Generally speaking, even if cars crash into buildings the building itself is
not immediately unsafe; injured people and a broken storefront, but the
building is not on fire or collapsing. Unless something has changed
dramatically, planes crashing into buildings generally start fires, and
generally cause concern about the structural integrity of said building in the
immediate aftermath.

As a result:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_New_York_City_plane_crash](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_New_York_City_plane_crash)

> On October 11, 2006, a Cirrus SR20 aircraft crashed into the Belaire
> Apartments in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, New York City, at about 2:42
> p.m. EDT (18:42 UTC). The aircraft struck the north side of the building
> causing a fire in several apartments,[2][3] which was extinguished within
> two hours.[4]

> Both people aboard the aircraft were killed in the accident: New York
> Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle[3] and his certificated flight instructor.[5][6]
> Twenty-one people were injured, including eleven firefighters. An apartment
> resident, Ilana Benhuri, who lived in the building with her husband, was
> hospitalized for a month with severe burns incurred when the post-impact
> fire engulfed her apartment.[7][8]

> On October 13, 2006, two days after the crash, the FAA banned all fixed-
> winged aircraft from the East River corridor unless in contact with local
> air traffic control. The new rule, which took effect immediately, required
> all small aircraft (with the exception of helicopters and certain seaplanes)
> to seek the approval of and stay in contact with air traffic control while
> in the corridor. The FAA cited safety concerns, especially unpredictable
> winds from between buildings, as the reason for the change.

Most car crashes do not result in 2 dead, 21 injured, and property damage to
several residences.

------
barbegal
I don’t quite see how you can spend only $10 million in capex and get 1
million passengers per year. With 4 passengers per flight that’s about 700
flights per day or about 1 flight per minute. That’s a lot compared to
existing heliports that handle 50 or so flights per day. Even with a 15 minute
turnaround time you will need parking space for at least 15 aircraft.

------
dheera
> Or maybe you want to escape to Lake Tahoe for a long weekend? That would be
> less than an hour on a Lilium Jet, at a cost of around $250 at launch and
> less in the near future.

Therein lies the problem with public transportation in the US. What do you do
after you get to Tahoe, Santa Cruz, or wherever? Most of these places are
devoid of functional public transportation, and rental car companies have long
lines and routinely screw people over and overbook.

And will the FAA allow you with your tent stakes, hiking poles, bear spray,
and camping stove with fuel on the Lilium Jet? (What else are you supposed to
do in Tahoe?)

~~~
rvnx
Also, the website underestimates one point.

The air taxi is not on top of your house.

You need to actually go from your house to the Lilium jet starting point (at
least 30 minutes or more in these complex urban setups) and you need to be in
advance for the take-off, eventual security checks and security briefing (like
any plane).

After air turbulences, then you are at the Lake Tahoe stuck in the middle of
nowhere.

You can take your Instagram picture and wait for the next plane to go back.

Was that really worth saving 1 hour in your life ?

The alternative is to gather with friends on the morning, go get your friends
with your car on the way, have a lunch picnic, have a tour around in the
nature, discover unexpected places. Come home for dinner.

No stress, no schedule, quality time with friends.

~~~
dheera
Also I don't know about Lilium but one of my biggest gripes about Amtrak and
other train infrastructure in the US, besides the sheer slow speed, is the
complete lack of basic human necessities at the endpoints of travel. You get
off the train and get basically thrown into a dilipidated, desolate parking
lot full of locked cars, next to a locked building with no food, often not
even bathrooms, no rain shelter, no bus to downtown for an hour, no rental
bicycles, and sometimes no signal.

That is a world of difference from Europe, China, or Japan, when you're
usually thrown into a food court when you get off the train, and buses leaving
every 10 minutes to everywhere you could possibly want to go. _Planes_
replicate that drop-off experience in the US, and Lilium will need to as well
in order for it to be a comfortable experience.

That goes for even for suburban trips. How do you get from wherever it drops
you off in Palo Alto to say, Facebook or Google's offices? Or the thousand
other companies that don't have company shuttles?

~~~
kaybe
The point is, the food court and shops usually make the train companies money
because they pay high rent. That only works when enough passengers come
through, which I'd guess might be the problem in the US?

(eg in Japan, JR East makes 30-40% of its profits from the shops:
[https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2010/12/30/business/jr-
eas...](https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2010/12/30/business/jr-easts-in-
station-stores-a-success-story/))

~~~
dheera
I guess. But what if they started with low rent, just enough to break even?
Added comfort to passengers might increase the number of passengers to the
train system itself to help get the cycle going.

------
epicureanideal
I wish they showed estimated prices for each of the routes.

If it's $100/flight I might use it once per month to get to Santa Cruz or Lake
Tahoe.

If it's $20/flight I might consider LIVING in one of those places and
commuting to work.

Edit: Oops, didn't see that they did. Or maybe you want to escape to Lake
Tahoe for a long weekend? That would be less than an hour on a Lilium Jet, at
a cost of around $250 at launch

Ok, so this isn't going to cause me to move.

~~~
mjlee
From the article:

> If we imagine for a moment that you work in an office in Palo Alto, you
> could now choose to live in Hayward (5 min flight, $25), downtown San
> Francisco (10 min flight, $50), or even San Rafael (15 min flight, $70).

> Or maybe you want to escape to Lake Tahoe for a long weekend? That would be
> less than an hour on a Lilium Jet, at a cost of around $250 at launch and
> less in the near future. It might not be something you’d do every weekend,
> but saving you three hours each way might well make it worthwhile for an
> occasional trip.

~~~
burlesona
Even at tech salaries those are expensive commutes.

But for a ski weekend in Tahoe? Seems legit, assuming these aircraft have a
great safety record.

~~~
gopalv
> Even at tech salaries those are expensive commutes.

Are they really that expensive?

I was paying 40$ on Lyft one-way to office earlier this year, which was a huge
part of my transportation costs (economically speaking, I should've driven,
but this allowed me to take the bullet back in the evening, which beat driving
by a lot).

50$ for SF -> PA isn't that much more expensive than Lyft in 2019.

~~~
arcticbull
You could do a line or pool in 2019 for as little as $17 even slightly off-
hours, fwiw. Your point remains well taken.

------
chris_va
Most people do not have the years to devote to becoming a good pilot, much
less get a new category cert, so I find that these sorts of prototypes have a
very limited audience.

"Or maybe you want to escape to Lake Tahoe for a long weekend? That would be
less than an hour on a Lilium Jet" ... ah, mountain flying with batteries,
what could possibly go wrong.

Also, I find the lack of a vertical stabilizer this plane to be an odd choice.
It seems like they have a ballistic chute for backup when the power fails, but
it might be hard to deploy that when you cannot do any spin recovery.

~~~
scarier
Yeah, I worry that a lot of the use cases are in the most complicated and
dangerous flight environments (mountains, big cities), even before you
consider things like weather, airspace management, power margin at altitude...

>Also, I find the lack of a vertical stabilizer this plane to be an odd
choice.

Not to mention any form of traditional aerodynamic control surface: "With 36
single-stage electric motors providing near-instantaneous thrust in almost any
direction, control surfaces, such as rudders, ailerons or a tail, aren't
required."

They've really doubled down on their VTOL shindig. Seems like a pretty big
gamble making an aircraft that's entirely dependent on its propulsion system
for basic aerodynamic stability and control (I'm also curious if the wings
would make noticeably less lift in a glide). "Intrinsically simple design,"
huh?

~~~
steffan
Given enough redundancy in the powertrain and power, I think it's probably
going to be more reliable mechanically than the average piston-engined light
aircraft.

Where I would really worry, of course, is the _software_ driving all of that.
It's very likely it will need some sophisticated control systems and may not
even be inherently stable aerodynamically.

------
ogre_codes
Looking at their proposed map and one of the destinations is the Yosemite
Valley floor.

Not just no... fuck no. I absolutely do not want what is an already awesome
place to be fucked up even more by someone installing an airport (vertical or
not) in the middle of the valley floor.

------
abraxas
If flying in this involves the all-cavity search like for all other passenger
flights then forgetaboutit. I'll take a train ride 3x as long just to avoid
the hassle of the airport experience.

~~~
AtlasBarfed
Or by the time it becomes reality, certainly highway self-driving will be a
thing and you can take 2x the time but sleep/surf/work/whatever over 95% of
the distance.

That said, it is so light that maybe it would be in range of consumer cost.

------
kraig911
I work in aviation. Maintenance FAA regulation tracking. Aside from all the
great points about safety some things to note A lot of people here seem to
forget that for the miles and hours in flight versus the costs of AC/upkeep
are VERY different from that of a car.

You spend hours and hours in a car you buy. Most small AC have a TTAF of 300
hours or less. And they are YEARS old. Literally nothing is wrong with a carb
engine. The planes get fairly good efficiency compared. People also seem to
think that planes are being bought at sold in the volumes of cars. Most AC are
fairly older. This is why innovations like avionics are up while airframe and
engines are low.

I get it that it feels like there's less innovation but I would gather to say
there's more. Especially when you get out of the turboprop market. It's
essentially the motorcycle industry versus the cars in the road.

~~~
the_duke
Electric motors should be a lot easier to maintain.

The Lilium jets also have a lot of small engines, allowing for multiple
failures in flight.

A lot of commenters are also missing the fact that Lilium plans to use pilots
initially, until regulations allow for autonomous operations. (it's not
mentioned in the article)

I'm sure there will be plenty of problems, but it will be interesting to see
if the idea is viable.

I think one of the biggest deal-breakers will actually be noise. Those things
are _loud_.

------
viburnum
This is bad because it doesn’t scale up the way mass transit does. Only a few
people will be able to use it, and those will be the people with the most
resources and power. As long as the people in charge can avoid the problems
that the little people have, they don’t pay much attention to them. What we
need is solidarity. We need systems that work for everyone, not one excellent
system for the few and half-hearted make-do for the rest.

------
voska
If you think building apartments in SF is hard, you should try getting a
heliport approved! Their plan for SF based routes will be near impossible.

It took UCSF 5 years to get their helipad. They had to spend tens of thousands
of dollars on noise studies.... _for exclusively emergency flights_

------
gorpomon
I love this idea. I don't envy the work ahead of them at all though.

In my career I've worked in both mechanical and software engineering and IMO
the mechanical engineering involved here is daunting. Caveat: when I was in
that industry 3D printing was just around the corner and you could print a
part per day and the machine cost $80k, so probably creating and testing
prototypes is far more pleasant now.

This looks like a truly fun project to work on that's full of frustration,
waiting, scrapped parts, broken CAD models, regulatory bs, good regulations
that save lives, tons of changes in direction, mercurial investors, endless
naysayers, and all done while considering that chances of success are small.
Honestly it looks fun as hell.

------
tschwimmer
To me this marketing just looks like a slightly less expensive helicopter.
It's great that we can travel to our ski trips or vacations a bit faster but
it's not going impact the mobility needs of 95% of people. Why isn't anyone
working on improving commutes through dense cityscapes? It's obviously a much
harder problem but it's also a more important one.

~~~
pdelbarba
I absolutely guarantee this will be anything but _less_ expensive.

You can get an R44 with better range and payload for a couple hundred
thousand. This will be an electronic nightmare requiring extensive
certification and maintenance efforts. Cessna can't even sell ridiculously old
designs for reasonable prices due to certification overhead.

~~~
nlawalker
Yeah, what I'm not clear on is: what's the cost to fly from SF to Lake Tahoe
in a helicopter? If it's a lot more than the $250 that Lilium is promising,
what is it that makes Lilium cheaper? Is it just the up-front investment in
scale and the route network?

~~~
pdelbarba
For an owner operator, an R22 and maybe an R44 would be able to do SF to Lake
Tahoe for well under $250. For a charter service you could probably get a
commercial operator to do it for maybe around ~$500 and there are definitely
some inefficiencies you could remove there. Lilium is on crack if they
actually think $250 is going to be the all in cost for a private flight
though. You don't just spin up a new air frame and 135 operation and make
money at those numbers...unless you pull an Uber on steroids and open the VC
floodgates...

~~~
nradov
The R44 has a tiny cargo capacity. It's not really viable for a family of 4
that want to bring skis with them.

------
Jabbles
I would have thought any new transport technology would be heavily automated -
from a brief look these require 1 pilot per 4 passengers.

Not that it would be easy, I'm just surprised something so ambitious doesn't
also include automation.

At first glance I would have thought automating a small plane would be easier
than automating a car - for one thing there are fewer things to crash into.

~~~
praveen9920
One word: compliance.

FAA has lot of restrictions to allow a planes to fly with pilot in it. Imagine
convincing them that without pilot.

~~~
noir_lord
Honestly that is as it should be.

Does that kind of regulation inhibit progress in some domains, sure - is the
cost of the loss of that progress worth it against the likely outcome of de-
regulating it absolutely.

Safety regulations are written in blood and when organisations like the FCC,
FDA etc fall down on the job people _die_.

I want my cyberpunk aircar as much as the next geek but not at the price of
having them fall out the sky because some programmer made an error at the end
of a 70hr work week to make a deadline for shipping.

~~~
Jabbles
This seems very absolutist. If we assume the technology exists to make this
safe, there are a number of factors that would make this obviously less risky:

4 people per aircraft reduce the number of lives at risk from any particular
issue. That doesn't mean the FAA can be 100x as cavalier as they are with an
A380, but it does mean the worst possible likely outcome is not as bad.

Short flights - easily predictable weather patterns.

Elimination of pilot error - obviously replaced with computer error, but
still.

And as I said elsewhere, the ability to test to destruction.

------
krm01
This sounds like they found an entry way into the market. Having traveled in
Switzerland, hopping on this between offices Geneva - Zurich would be a no
brainer.

If anyone at lilium is reading. Please contact our firm. Would love to
contribute to this moonshot and allocate some of ouwr UI/UX firm’s resources
to contribute and help simplify the software side of things. (See bio)

------
peter303
A kilogram of gasoline has over 5 times the energy density of a kilogram
lithium-air battery. Fuel weight will control air travel range for the
forseeable future.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density#Tables_of_energ...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density#Tables_of_energy_content)

------
baybal2
Switzerland is one of few countries where "air taxi" services turned to
profit.

Hilly terrain makes it hard to make straight roads. Quite a lot of big cities
don't have direct road connections.

In a relatively flat USA, you don't have a lot of similar spaces.

~~~
0_____0
Only place in the US I can think of that matches that is rural Alaska. Lots of
little islands and communities where bushplanes are a primary transportation
mode.

I remember seeing a row of houses built along a grassy strip that operated as
a runway. Like their combined backyards were literally the airstrip.

~~~
FabHK
Distances are much larger in Alaska though, I'd think, which means that
electric aircraft will struggle.

Switzerland has 8.5m people on 41k km^2, while Alaska has 0.7m people on 1500k
km^2.

------
bfuclusion
I feel these plans are ignoring a big component of why we don't have tons of
heliports in urban areas. Noise. Even with electric pushing enough air to move
is going to make a fair amount.

~~~
ricardobeat
They certainly didn't ignore that aspect - right there, in the middle of the
article, they mention that the aircraft has been designed for low noise, the
equivalent of a truck passing by.

~~~
trynewideas
Now you can have the relative noise level of a nearby industry road wherever
your house might be!

------
einpoklum
Flying a single person or two, with VTOL? That's an incredibly high
expenditure of energy per person-meter traveled. Much higher than regular
aviation, which itself requires a lot of energy.

Considering the prospects for decreasing availability of fossil fuel, and
questions of climate impact, it seems to me that this is not sustainable on a
mass scale, at all. I would guess this initiative will either become an
alternative for the very-rich to using helicopters, or not get off the ground.

(... ok, that pun was a little underhanded, I admit.)

------
mytailorisrich
They are investing a billion dollar to develop a plane from scratch in order
to launch a taxi service.

This strikes as quite an odd thing to do and my bet is that either one of the
big guys (Airbus, Boeing, etc) will launch a competing aircraft and kill them,
or they will be acquired. Even if they continue as an aircraft manufacturer I
am doubtful about the mix with being a taxi company.

It also seems an awful lot of money to develop one small plane.

------
alexchamberlain
There's one area where I'd love a shorter trip: travelling to the
international airport.

I live in South East London and it can easily take over an hour to get to
Heathrow, which really eats into a weekend if travelling for work. I'd love to
be able to go to a more local vertigo, check my luggage and just have to clear
international security at the main airport.

------
raz32dust
Hate to be the naysayer, but last mile is going to be tricky. 10 mins from
Palo Alto to SF sounds fantastic. But if it takes you 15 mins to get from home
to the flight, and 15 mins from flight to wherever you need to be in SF, then
the total of 40 mins doesn't sound so great when you factor in the price.

------
therockspush
There's a bunch of these companies getting more traction right now.

Joby Aviation, Kitty Hawk Aero, Wisk, Terrafugia, Opener, Lillium, probably
more.

Its already been mentioned here how regulated this industry is, and they
aren't going to be able to pull the Uber model of asking for forgiveness
instead of permission.

Guessing some consolidation is coming up.

~~~
nradov
Investments and prototypes are not traction. Paying customers are traction.

------
pengaru
The last thing I expected was EDF (Electric Ducted Fan) propulsion on
something described as a jet.

------
teleforce
Why Gyrocopter is not more popular today than ever is beyond me. It's probably
the most efficient and effective way to air travel for short distances.

The ultralight Gyrocopter can fly with unleaded 95 Octane and with strong wind
of more than 40 knots (see circumnavigation of of Iceland) and its wonderful
technology [1],[2].

[1][https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmwEbjzLtDo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmwEbjzLtDo)

[2][https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8IB-5PbL9U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8IB-5PbL9U)

------
giarc
I can't remember who said it or on which podcast, but they basically said that
VTOL is the real game changer, not autonomous driving. Sure autonomous driving
might be able to shave some time off of your commute, but you are still in a
car and still driving on roads. VTOL is what really allows you to experience
what the ultra wealthy with access to private jets and helicopters have
experienced. Getting out of the city to a 'vacation' spot in no time at all.

~~~
hristov
Until you invent anti-gravity, VTOL will always be (i) very energy intensive,
and (ii) and very disruptive to the surrounding environment. This is both in
terms of noise and air turbulence.

Self driving is something that may be solved and can become practical for
popular use with current and near-term foreseeable technology. Everyday mass
use VTOL is not. Sorry, the Jetsons lied to you.

~~~
wefarrell
Black hawks are quiet enough for specops teams to use them in urban raids like
the Bin Laden one.

~~~
bouchard
The rotorcraft used for the Bin Laden raid weren't standard Black hawks.

The modifications probably required huge trade-offs in cost/performance and
might still not be quiet enough for daily use in urban/residential areas.

~~~
wefarrell
Still not exactly anti-gravity.

Lilium boasts: "As well as a customized electric motor, it contains innovative
liner technology which means the aircraft will be inaudible from the ground
when flying above 400m and will only be as loud as a passing truck while
taking off." [https://lilium.com/the-jet](https://lilium.com/the-jet)

------
LouisSayers
I can’t see this taking off. If people truly wanted to travel between these
places faster they’d already be doing it in Helicopters.

------
projektfu
The thing that concerns me (and probably any regulatory body as well): a
conventional helicopter can make a controlled landing without power. This
plane will rely on a ballistic chute? So flying over urban areas at low
altitudes, after a power failure it will just fall down wherever the wind
takes it?

------
Hovertruck
> If we imagine for a moment that you work in an office in Palo Alto, you
> could now choose to live in Hayward (5 min flight, $25), downtown San
> Francisco (10 min flight, $50), or even San Rafael (15 min flight, $70).

This is a strange example to include in here – that's a pretty expensive (one-
way?) commute.

~~~
looping__lui
I guess they address the pressing problems of their investors? Like people
with too much money to spend and a bit detached from reality? ;-)

~~~
notatoad
yeah, looking at the size of their aircraft and their proposed "vertiports",
they're not suggesting that hundreds of thousands of people can move to san
rafael and commute to sf, they're talking about more like 12 people. and tbh
they could probably find a dozen people in the bay area with a $36k/year
commuting budget

------
simonebrunozzi
I've read about "Uber for jets" or "AirBnB for jets" startups for a while, but
most of them are out of business.

What's the hardest thing for them? Regulation? Else?

------
opportune
Here's hoping they refine their proposed Bay Area network before launch...
seems crazy to have a station in San Gregorio (vs. Halfmoon bay) and none in
the Oakland/Emeryville area nor in the area around SJC airport

------
guidoism
SF to Palo Alto by car in 35m is ummm, optimistic. It’s usually more like 2h.

~~~
tschwimmer
It's about 35 minutes in zero traffic. During rush out it can be a few minutes
on either side of an hour.

------
scarier
I'm curious if there will be a market for this--plenty of current production
aircraft can work perfectly well as air taxis, but the service has only caught
on in niche markets (island-hopping float planes, some helicopter services,
arguably a lot of bush flying). Decreasing the cost by an order of magnitude
might go some distance to open the market up--I can't see this succeeding
without a drastic advantage in operating costs over traditional aircraft (I
think the jury's still out on whether electric propulsion is a significant
advantage here, and VTOL requirements are a big disadvantage).

The case for VTOL in particular becomes a lot less convincing when you're
primarily looking at the kind of regional travel Lilium mentions here--why not
just electrify an existing FW aircraft and operate out of existing
infrastructure ([https://www.harbourair.com/harbour-air-and-magnix-
announce-s...](https://www.harbourair.com/harbour-air-and-magnix-announce-
successful-flight-of-worlds-first-commercial-electric-airplane/))? Small
airports are pretty ubiquitous, and going through an FBO largely eliminates
long waits for security and boarding (not to mention alleviating some of the
last-mile transportation issues).

I can't stress enough that nothing is simple about VTOL--even if this aircraft
lacks complex hydraulic, fuel, and oil systems, any failure in the
(electromechanical?) control actuation systems will likely prevent transition
to/from hovering flight. It looks like the control surfaces may be designed to
have multiple, independent segments (hopefully with redundant actuators) to
mitigate these kinds of failures (aside: it's fascinating to see a GA aircraft
designed to be dependent on TVC for basic stability and control), but a loss
of even one of these segments might not allow a safe power margin for a
vertical landing near max gross weight, and it doesn't look like the wheels
were designed at all with roll-on landings in mind.

All that said, I wish the engineers working on this thing the best. The
current demonstrator is a great-looking machine, and it'd be awesome to see
this kind of thing succeed.

------
djohnston
VTOL seems like a difficult thing to get right, the military still has issues
w the osprey although the design here is quite removed from that. wishing them
the best.

------
bananabreakfast
It's all well and good to talk about how great it would be to launch and land
right from San Francisco, but they conveniently step around mentioning that it
is currently explicitly illegal. The challenge isn't to come up with a great
idea, but rather to get San Francisco to change its laws.

There are helipads all over the city and none of them can be used with the
specific exception of flight-for-life helicopters landing in Mission Bay.

------
mrwnmonm
Haven't humanity learned that celebrating and running after their 'abilities'
is not a wise move?

------
k__
What would make a "flying car" worthwhile for under 20km flights?

~~~
ethanbond
Basically a failing state. No public transit, bad roads, or safety issues
between wealthy enclaves.

Yet the market always has solutions up its sleeve! Short range flight!

------
monomyth
great solution for some with noise pollution increase for everyone.

------
rvnx
Small planes and helicopters are so unstable that I wouldn't enjoy riding this
vehicle at all. High-speed train is so much more comfortable.

Most people taking the plane everyday hate it.

It's a so-so idea.

~~~
errantspark
I this is a solvable problem and moving from current propulsion methods to a
whole bunch of very small individually controllable BLDC motors with one
moving part and low inertia is definitely a step in the right direction toward
increasing the stability of low mass aircraft.

~~~
Alupis
Most of the "uncomfotrable-ness" of smaller aircraft is how easily they are
blown around in the wind, which is not insignificant at safe operating
altitudes.

This aircraft proposal will not be able to negate the effect. Think small boat
on a lake - even with azimuth thrusters, still bobs up and down back and forth
with the waves. Larger boats don't experience the effect as much, due to mass
- same with large airliners.

~~~
yread
Couldn't you come up with some smart way of changing the throttle of the
engines to keep you stable. Bit like these fins

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rCWnI8r_EQ

~~~
Alupis
No. You're effectively in a liquid, and that liquid is moving very quickly up
and down, left and right. You can see in the video you linked to, it's not all
that effective, even while stationary in a boat. Plus, the drag penalty
related to some extra appendage like this would be severe.

It would take a LOT to keep you precisely in the same 6-axis position - and
there's no way a system could react quick enough because it would first need
to detect the movement, accounting for normal wind-speed, etc. Any solution
here would be heavy, induce drag, eat through batteries/fuel, and introduce a
lot of new failure modes that don't exist with traditional aircraft and could
be unrecoverable in the event of a failure (stuck appendage or azimuth
thruster-like propeller in wrong direction, destroying lift).

Things are quite different just 1,000 feet off the ground, and even worse
5,000 ft or 10,000 feet. The wind speed can get extreme, averaging 100mph at
10,000 ft[1].

For people accustomed to flying in these small aircraft, you get used to it.
But for people already nervous about flying, or not familiar with small
aircraft, the sudden movement can be very disorienting and scary.

People often underestimate the aviation industry. It's incredibly safe, and
very stable. A lot of innovations were paid for with blood during the early
days of aviation, which led to it's maturity. Innovation, at this point in
aviation's history, is very challenging and requires very deep understandings
- even mature organizations like Boeing struggle with this from time-to-time,
and they have a ton of experience in developing extremely reliable aircraft
for not just transport, but combat and more.

Unfortunately, far too often, things like this startup's solution are dreamt
up by people that don't understand the problem domain and don't have a lot of
experience in the field. They look from afar, and confidently state they know
a solution no one else has thought of or tried, and the entire industry is
simply doing things so obviously wrong. Fortunately, they often find out why
things are the way they are within a reasonable time frame and don't blow all
of their investor's money or get people killed. Time will tell here.

[1] [http://www.kitegen.com/en/technology/wind-
data/](http://www.kitegen.com/en/technology/wind-data/)

~~~
errantspark
To be clear I don't think that a bunch of motors with low latency control
solve the problem of flying straight in turbulence. I think that it will allow
for exploration of a new space of clever approaches to mitigate turbulence for
craft with low inertia.

~~~
Alupis
Maybe. I'd like to see myself.

But, I'm highly skeptical for a lot of reasons. This design in particular
introduces a lot of turbulent flow over the lift surfaces, and is going to
require a lot of fancy logic to ensure the aircraft can remain stable with one
or more of it's motors failing. It ads a lot of complexity, to a vehicle where
simplicity keeps you safe, particularly at low altitudes where seconds matter
when there's a problem.

------
mangecoeur
Can an American please explain how a 3h41 minute car journey to Tahoe turns
into an 8h49(!) train journey? Are your trains pulled by horses or something?

~~~
technofiend
We don't have separate high speed rail tracks like Europe does; we have a
single rail system used for slow cargo trains that take priority over
passenger trains. Imagine driving everywhere with giant cargo trucks driving
80 km / hr in every lane with no way to pass them and you'll get the picture.

~~~
machello13
> slow cargo trains that take priority over passenger trains.

This is only half true. Legally, Amtrak has priority, and railroads are
required to cede right-of-way to passenger trains. In practice, the railroads
don't cede priority nearly as much as they should. This is an ongoing fight.
Amtrak has a whole site about it here: [https://www.amtrak.com/on-time-
performance](https://www.amtrak.com/on-time-performance)

