Back in 2017, German company Lilium was making funding pitches to a number of big names in business and watching their kitty grow.

Their concept was simple but appealing; they were going to build a form of air transport that’s affordable, good for the environment and revolutionary in design.

Two years later and the Lilium Jet has successfully completed its first phase of flight testing.

It’s also done so way ahead of schedule, reports ITWeb, which will make investors happy:

The Lilium Jet, the world’s first five-seater, all-electric, vertical take-off and landing jet, was revealed to the world in May 2019 and since then has been put through its paces at an airfield in southern Germany.

The emissions-free aircraft, which will be able to complete journeys of up to 300km in one hour on a single charge, has now been flown at speeds exceeding 100km/h, in increasingly complex maneuvers.

The company has also completed their first dedicated manufacturing facility, which it says is an important step towards preparing the company for serial production of the Lilium Jet.

The first manufacturing facility, a 3 000 square metre space located at the company’s headquarters, will soon be complemented by a second, much larger, facility which is already under construction at the same site.

Combined, they will support Lilium’s aim of producing hundreds of aircraft a year by the time commercial services begin in 2025.

Here’s the latest launch video. Please mentally prepare yourself for the world’s creepiest voice-over artist:

She sounds like she’d enjoy a very successful career voicing possessed dolls or ghost children in horror films.

Back to the Lilium Jet.

During the first phase of testing, the aircraft also successfully completed a range of safety tests, including engine failures and flap failures, as well as fuse-blow-tests on the ground and in the air.

The aircraft, which is controlled remotely from the ground, will now move on to its second phase of testing which will look specifically at how it performs at high speeds.

With a top speed of 300km/h the Lilium Jet is expected to shortly become the fastest all-electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft in the world.

Anything that will help me avoid traffic, is fine by me.

Sure, 2025 might seem like a long way off, but we’re just a few months from 2020.

Let that sink in for a second.

[source:itweb]