It looks like Lilum Aviation is now hiring http://lilium-aviation.com/#jobs
This is the company that has announced via the Telegraph a vertical lift flying car in two years.
Oh and there's something in there about a personal electric jet, with vertical take off and landing, a top speed of 250MPH and a range of 300 Miles.
But really, a job designing a real flying car, how cool is that?
From the article:
Personal aeroplanes which can take off noiselessly from the back garden, will be available within two years, engineers have claimed.
Lilium Aviation is designing an electric two-seater aircraft which takes just 20 hours to learn to fly, and can travel at speeds of 250mph.
Crucially, the small aircraft, which weighs just 25kg[sic], can take off vertically which means it does not need to fly from an airport, but could be parked outside a house or in a garden.
The company says the design will 'open the door to a new class of simpler, quieter and environmentally friendly planes' and will be available from 2018.
"Our goal is to develop an aircraft for use in everyday life," said Daniel Wiegand, CEO and one of the company's four founders.
"We are going for a plane that can take off and land vertically and does not need the complex and expensive infrastructure of an airport.
"To reduce noise and pollution, we are using electric engines so it can also be used close to urban areas."
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 10 2016, @04:30PM
This can't be accurate. The whole thing looks not accurate. Or at least wishful thinking.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 10 2016, @05:44PM
According to their spec sheet the max. payload weight is 200kg and the max. take off weight is 600kg, so since the plane's electric and there's no fuel that makes the aircraft 400kg (assuming I'm not missing something; I'm not an aviator).
(Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday May 10 2016, @04:33PM
can take off vertically which means it does not need to fly from an airport, but could be parked outside a house or in a garden.
25KG is not a flying car, its at best a strap-on. I suspect Ethanol Fueled has bigger ones.
This is never going to be allowed anyway. Nobody wants "cars" popping up out of gardens and dashing out into the air in a cacophony of unregulated flight. Quite literally, this project is never going to fly. Not in everyday life. Not even among thrill seekers.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday May 10 2016, @08:47PM
I'm pretty sure that's an article error - the Lilum website indicates a 600kg max takeoff weight, and a 200kg payload. So the two-seated craft itself (including batteries, since it's electric) is presumably the other 400kg.
As for people not wanting flying cars... that would depend heavily on just how loud it is. They claim much quieter than a helicopter, but that's not saying much. On the other hand we're talking about a vehicle which will probably only be affordable to the richest sliver of the population, and will only be allowed to takeoff from pre-approved locations. So, it could be great for flying from your private estate to the country club, your friend's estate, etc. And who knows, maybe the technology will eventually advance to the point that real people might care.
(Score: 2) by AndyTheAbsurd on Tuesday May 10 2016, @04:53PM
No, I do not want to help design a flying car. Idiots run into each other, or run out of fuel, frequently enough as is, without adding an extra dimension and a lack of defined roadways to drive on. Flying cars accidents will be awful, far more so than ground car accidents.
Please note my username before responding. You may have been trolled.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday May 10 2016, @05:08PM
Automated piloting is probably going to happen before flying cars.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday May 10 2016, @05:30PM
That aircraft had better be sentient, because autopilot typically doesn't monitor shoddy maintenance.
(Score: 1) by SparkyGSX on Tuesday May 10 2016, @05:04PM
And indeed, it is a very cool job to have!
http://www.pal-v.com/ [pal-v.com]
But seriously, 25kg? 400km/h? 480 km range? Fully electric? Vertical takeoff? That's not just highly unlikely, that's about as far into "yeah, right" territory as you could possibly go. At least it doesn't run on water.
Even if the 25kg is a misunderstanding of the author of the article, and it would be 500kg instead, it still sounds very unlikely. Vertical takeoff requires a enormous amount of power, 400km/h requires quite a lot of power, and if it's all electric, the battery pack alone would weigh close to 500kg, if not more.
Also, if you can't legally drive it on a public road, it's not a flying car, is it?
If you do what you did, you'll get what you got
(Score: 2) by devlux on Tuesday May 10 2016, @06:12PM
Wow, that's actually the coolest thing I've seen ever. I want one. Are they shipping yet?
I've always wanted an autogyro every since I read Brave New World.
(Score: 1) by Scottingham on Tuesday May 10 2016, @08:13PM
check out http://www.e-volo.com/ [e-volo.com]
Actually made and working with a manned test flight!
All electric too! Though, I hope they use a gas range extender as I bet it only has like 15 min of flight time at the moment.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday May 10 2016, @06:40PM
> 400km/h requires quite a lot of power
Depends on the shape.
My friend flies one of these: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rutan_Long-EZ [wikipedia.org]
115HP, 300km/h, sips fuel even with two people on board, but minimal luggage capability. One of the best flights I've ever taken.
(Score: 2) by subs on Wednesday May 11 2016, @04:31PM
There's easily about a 2x power requirement difference between going 160KT (300km/h) and 215KT (400km/h). Moreover, the aircraft you describe is clearly a strong compromise. Tandem seating, rather than side-by-side. Two-seat only. Very little carrying capacity. Heck, even the 135HP 4-seater DA-40 I fly is pretty underpowered and that's before you get to the load sheet and notice that you either take 4 people and no fuel or luggage, or if you want fuel and/or luggage, forget about 1-2 seats.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 11 2016, @12:47AM
Cool product. CEO needs more charisma....like any.
(Score: 2) by Foobar Bazbot on Wednesday May 11 2016, @12:49AM
Congrats on a very cool job working on a very cool product. That's the first flying-car/roadable-aircraft design I've seen without car-mode so obviously and utterly compromised that I can't really imagine driving it anywhere but to/from the airfield (in fact, it looks very fun to drive), and I do like autogyros.
On the other hand, it uses a single powerplant, which means aviation-type service intervals, so I still can't see putting hours on it by driving anywhere but to/from the airfield. Then again, I'm nowhere close to affording something like this -- maybe if you can afford it in the first place, you'll think nothing of paying for more frequent overhauls.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 10 2016, @05:24PM
Well, based on the Betteridge's law of headlines, the answer is no
(Score: 2, Disagree) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday May 10 2016, @05:37PM
Flying cars won't be practical until we can create a craft with about the same ability to fly as a real bird. We need much better AI, more forgiving, flexible, tough, and lightweight materials-- it's no big deal if birds bump into each other, and much improved efficiency. The way we fly now is hugely energy intensive, basically a brute force method of pouring on the power until the dumb and pathetic fixed wing designs that are the best we can manage today can't help but lift the plane off the ground. The multiple rotor helicopter style is more controllable with current technology but even more energy intensive.
Ask why we don't build more canals and travel more by boat? In one respect, boating on a lake is similar to flying in that the craft need not stick to a narrow track. However, another similarity is energy use. Plus boats are expensive, slow, and have limited feasible routes. Railroads pretty much put canals out of business. Maybe an amphibious vehicle could work? Our favorite method of supplying cities with water is to build huge reservoirs, why not commute to work by road and lake where convenient, avoid some rush hour traffic?
Perhaps a biologically based aircraft could work. I figure the technology to do that is many years away, perhaps decades, perhaps centuries.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Tuesday May 10 2016, @06:13PM
"Bumping into each other" like birds does not scale. Nor do flapping wings: you would be tossed around like salad, assuming the craft held together. As well as that, it does not matter how tough and lightweight the material you make an aircraft from, in the end a human sized cabin must be shoved through the air at a specified speed, and that's where most of an aircraft's energy goes.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by tangomargarine on Tuesday May 10 2016, @05:46PM
1) The second link is a 404.
2) If it's promised in 2 years obviously either A) they've been working on it for awhile already, B) the date is a blatant lie, or C) they're not going to deliver what we think they are.
3) Vis a vis #2, they wouldn't be hiring people for that project at this point. Especially not the design phase!
4) "Flying car" in general is always a poorly-defined term. Are we talking about a jet, a jetpack, or strapping RATO units to an actual car? Cf. the land-speed record "cars" they have usually look nothing like car-cars and could never be driven on public roads. So yeah, you can technically get 956241 mpg with one, but...it's not useful.
5) "the small aircraft, which weighs just 25kg" -- see #4. "25 kilos" and "aircraft" are mutually exclusive terms unless the thing is built out of unobtainium weightless carbon nanotubes. If I can carry it, it's not an aircraft.
6) Can you imagine the chaos if a bunch of people actually had these?
7) "electric engines", "range of 300 Miles" -- I thought they barely have electric *cars* with a range of 300 miles? Doesn't keeping airborne require rather a lot of energy?
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Tuesday May 10 2016, @05:56PM
Oops. I meant to mod that informative, not Funny.
(Score: 3, Funny) by tangomargarine on Tuesday May 10 2016, @06:13PM
8) Don't Teslas require a metric assload of electric batteries strapped to the bottom of the car to get their range? Where is all the weight for this magic electric power going, a pocket universe?
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by devlux on Tuesday May 10 2016, @06:16PM
I just did a link check all 3 are fine.
My original was much more sarcastic and clickbaity. The editor did a great job of adding content where none was intended. :D
Fact is, there are several people here looking for work. This company is backed by the ESA is fully funded and can pay you. One of the open jobs is designing the software that controls this. For some reason they want C/C++, last I checked most flight control systems were Ada for a reason.
Anyways it's a job where you would be designing a flying car. Literally the entire sum of my original post.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday May 10 2016, @06:26PM
Hmm. The link is working now. The first several times I tried I got directed to their 404 landing page.
Anyways it's a job where you would be designing a flying car.
No, you'd be designing the software for a flying car. Appreciable difference.
And I'm still suspicious that they're hiring people now for something that is supposedly coming out in 2 years. Especially something as complicated as an aircraft. I'd bet on more like 5-7 years at best.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by devlux on Tuesday May 10 2016, @08:44PM
My honest guess is that the software for the flying car is the only thing that will ever actually ship. However if you read the various openings there is a lot more than a software engineer that they need. Basically they have some very nice 3D renders and a boatload of cash to build something in 2 years that somewhat resembles the renders.
I agree that you are going to need to find a large supply of unobtainium for this to fly, but it misses the point that someone has actual funding and the project sounds cool.
Keep in mind that until the sound barrier was broken, going faster than sound was widely considered impossible.
Before the space race, we thought that rockets to the moon would be impossible, yet we had men there in a decade once NASA got funding.
This is the ESA funding development, which as I understand it, is Europe's NASA and while it's not a moon shot, it's still interesting if they can make it work.
I wonder what impossible things we'll be taking for granted next. A computer that fits in your pocket? Video Calls? Unpossible!
Had it been anyone else I would be wasting precisely no one's time with this. But the whole ESA angle gives it some credibility to my mind and in my original summary there was no details on the flying car itself. Just mention of someone hiring for what could be the ultimate in "cool resume bullets".
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday May 10 2016, @09:20PM
Oh, I'm not saying any several of the design goals aren't doable by sacrificing one of them. But it's like that whole "good, fast, cheap: pick 2" saying.
1) VTOL (and, sort of by extension, small)
2) electric
3) flyable by amateurs
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 1) by DeathElk on Tuesday May 10 2016, @11:50PM
Thanks for posting the article, interesting. Imagine where we'd be if the majority didn't fall back to nay-say by default.
(Score: 2) by deadstick on Wednesday May 11 2016, @03:19AM
I'll go with nay-say. Feel free to archive this and throw it back in my face if the opportunity comes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 10 2016, @07:23PM
Picture an F-35 flight system (with lift fan) in a lifting body. Traditional take-off is fully prohibited, and traditional landing is only allowed as an emergency option.
The lift fan goes in front of the people.
Before flight, heat shields deploy to protect the rear tires. (suspension extend to lift the vehicle, deploy shields, suspension retract to sit on shields and lift wheels to safety)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 10 2016, @08:30PM
Don't forget the NASA Puffin project. [nasa.gov] However, it is a single-person vehicle, but that's probably more realistic for daily commutes.
(Score: 2) by subs on Wednesday May 11 2016, @04:36PM
...total and utter marketing hype, containing stupidity gems like:
[helicopters] also have no backup in case of rotor failure
Yeah, no shit. The rotor *is* the helicopter's wing. When was the last time you saw an aircraft with backup wings? Or did they mean "backup engine"? Are they seriously as stupid as thinking that if a helicopter loses an engine, it just falls out of the sky?