Flying taxis may become a reality for modern cities in the next decade. Among the companies close to the project of launching urban air transport, one can single out Lilium from Germany, which has been developing and testing its own aircraft for several years and also has its own production facilities for the production of flying taxis at a plant in Munich. Work is underway on the construction of the second stage of production, and by 2025 the plant’s capacity will be calculated on the production of hundreds of flying taxis per year.
The development of Lilium has been going on for several years, and the first test flights took place in the spring of 2019. The company has shown a video with a vertical take-off of the device and its short flight over the landfill. After a significant number of tests had been passed, the developers focused on checking the speed capabilities of the aircraft.
Lilium used 36 electric motors as engines, developing power up to 2000 horsepower during vertical take-off. For a normal horizontal flight with 5 passengers, not more than 10% of the maximum power is required. At the same time, operational emissions are at a zero level. During the tests, the plane flew at a speed of about 100 km/h, but in the end it is planned to achieve a maximum speed of 300 km/h.
