Honeywell to supply avionics and flight control systems for Lilium’s seven-seater eVTOL and announced as investor

Lil­i­um has cho­sen Hon­ey­well to devel­op the avion­ics and flight con­trol sys­tems for its sev­en-seater eVTOL air­craft, with Hon­ey­well also announc­ing it is invest­ing in the Ger­man start­up.

Honeywell’s Com­pact Fly-by-Wire Sys­tem will act as the flight con­trol sys­tem on the Lil­i­um Jet, which is respon­si­ble for con­trol­ling its move­able parts, includ­ing the 36 con­trol sur­faces and duct­ed fans that pro­vide its high lev­els of manoeu­vra­bil­i­ty in every stage of flight. 

This sys­tem, which has been tai­lored for the Lil­i­um Jet’s design, will play a cru­cial role in ensur­ing smooth, com­fort­able, and emis­sion-free air trav­el for pas­sen­gers. Along­side the flight con­trol sys­tem, Hon­ey­well is deliv­er­ing the next gen­er­a­tion inte­grat­ed avion­ics sys­tem, which will pro­vide a sim­pli­fied user inter­face for the pilot to fly the Lil­i­um Jet.

Yves Yem­si, Chief Pro­gram Offi­cer, Lil­i­um, said: “The avion­ics and flight con­trol com­put­ers from Hon­ey­well will be a key ele­ment for the Lil­i­um Jet’s elec­tron­ic archi­tec­ture. Hon­ey­well will inte­grate an advanced flight deck tai­lored for Lil­i­um Jet as the cen­tral inter­face to the pilot with a vehi­cle man­age­ment com­put­er and a high integri­ty flight con­trols com­put­ing plat­form to pro­vide a state-of-the-art Fly-By-Wire solu­tion for the Lil­i­um Jet.”

Hon­ey­well will also be par­tic­i­pat­ing in the com­mon stock pri­vate invest­ment in pub­lic equi­ty (PIPE) offer­ing asso­ci­at­ed with Lil­i­um’s joint SPAC merg­er with Qell Acqui­si­tion Corp. The amount invest­ed by Hon­ey­well has­n’t been dis­closed in the press release, but the com­pa­ny joins oth­er investors includ­ing Bail­lie Gif­ford, Ten­cent, Fer­rovial, LGT and Lightrock and Palan­tir.

As well as Lil­i­um, Hon­ey­well is work­ing with oth­er com­pa­nies in the sec­tor. It has also agreed to install its fly-by-wire sys­tem in Pip­istrel Air­craft’s Nuu­va V300 car­go air­craft, along with crit­i­cal sen­sor and nav­i­ga­tion tech­nol­o­gy. Addi­tion­al­ly, it is pro­vid­ing flight deck tech­nolo­gies to Ver­ti­cal Aero­space’s VA-X4 air­craft.

Stéphane Fymat, vice pres­i­dent and gen­er­al man­ag­er of Urban Air Mobil­i­ty, Hon­ey­well., said: “At Hon­ey­well, we believe in the promise of the Urban Air Mobil­i­ty seg­ment and we see the enor­mous poten­tial it has to bring about a new age of avi­a­tion and for­ev­er trans­form the way we think about flight and trans­porta­tion.

“Lil­i­um shares that vision with us, which has enabled us to forge a fan­tas­tic rela­tion­ship. We’re extreme­ly excit­ed for our avion­ics to be on board the Lil­i­um Jet, where they will help ensure not only safe oper­a­tion, but also make it eas­i­er for pilots to fly and pro­vide a more com­fort­able jour­ney for those onboard.”

Along­side the flight con­trol sys­tem, Hon­ey­well is deliv­er­ing the next gen­er­a­tion inte­grat­ed avion­ics sys­tem, which will pro­vide a sim­pli­fied user inter­face for the pilot to fly the Lil­i­um Jet. It is designed to reduce train­ing time and will sup­port oper­a­tion by a sin­gle pilot, free­ing up greater pas­sen­ger capac­i­ty. 

Fol­low­ing Toray Indus­tries, Aci­tur­ri, and Lufthansa Avi­a­tion Train­ing, Hon­ey­well is the lat­est in a series of world-class Lil­i­um sup­pli­ers. They are joined by infra­struc­ture lead­ers such as the Tavi­s­tock Devel­op­ment Com­pa­ny, and Fer­rovial, a lead­ing air­port oper­a­tor, which has pro­vid­ed approx­i­mate­ly $200 mil­lion in com­mit­ments to sup­port the devel­op­ment of up to 14 ver­ti­ports in Flori­da. 

Yem­si added: “Hon­ey­well has a decades-long track record of devel­op­ing and cer­ti­fy­ing avion­ics and safe­ty sys­tems for lead­ing aero­space com­pa­nies and has worked along­side Lil­i­um to devel­op a bespoke solu­tion for our air­craft. We are proud that Hon­ey­well is join­ing our ros­ter of world-class avi­a­tion part­ners and also as one of our investors as we pre­pare to launch com­mer­cial oper­a­tions in 2024.”