European Space Agency over-hypes a flying car

This, by 2018! The Lilium press release by ESA needs an explanation.

When an entity as important and respected as the European Space Agency runs a slickly illustrated press release touting a revolutionary flying car that will be ready for deliveries in 2018 it is obvious that there has been a huge stuff up in its media office.

That is no criticism of the exciting and visionary work done on what is called the Lilium project, but it is clear that if the claims published on its web site were really subjected to editorial integrity and accuracy procedures they were done by unsupervised school age interns.

Which is a shame, because as Airbus has shown with its E-fan project (and other variations) such concepts have reached the threshold of becoming factory produced aircraft aimed at general aviation use with much greater goals in mind.

But not as household flying cars ready to operate from backyards for private owners two years from now.

It is difficult to grasp how ESA, which has been responsible for some exceptionally important space missions including the Cassini-Huygens probe to Saturn and its giant moon Titan, or the Rosetta orbiter and lander to comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, could have bungled this so badly.

Perhaps the key to understanding this  lies in the origins of the Lilium project in an ESA business incubator, which is described as hosting the development of the world's first vertical takeoff and landing aircraft for personal use, something done many times last century by the pioneer's of helicopters.

The guff says "The electric two-seater will open the door to a new class of simpler, quieter and environmentally friendly planes available from 2018.

"Our goal is to develop an aircraft for use in everyday life," explains Daniel Wiegand, CEO and one of the company's four founders.

Mr Weigand is may be one of the co-founders shown (below) with a scale model of the Lilium under test at ESA.

A scaled and tethered Lilium test bed and inventors.

What disruptive technology labs or business incubators need is reality-minders, who will stop bright minds making claims that will see them turfed out of any meeting with plausible financial backers within an interval not exceeding 10-20 minutes at most.

The vision is great, but flying machines require testing and certification and serious planning, the coordination of components and a maturity and reliability of systems and processes that would meet standards of safety well in excess of those that will have to be met by mass produced 'driverless' cars.

There will come a time when Liliums, or similar, take to the skies in their billions, diminishing the sunlight that falls on a world where the age of highways and railways and scheduled airlines has passed. But it won't start as soon as 2018.

Ben Sandilands

Editor of Plane Talking @PlaneTalking

Ben Sandilands has reported and analysed the mechanical mobility of humanity since late 1960 - the end of the age of great scheduled ocean liners and coastal steamers and the start of the jet age. He's worked in newspapers, radio and TV in a wide range of roles as a journalist at home and abroad for 56 years, the last 18 freelance.

Source: European Space Agency over-hypes a flying car