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Lilium partners with Collins Aerospace to build its Inceptor sidestick

Lil­i­um has teamed with Collins Aero­space, to design, devel­op and build its Incep­tor side­stick sys­tem, used by the pilot to con­trol the air­craft. Collins Aero­space is a leader in tech­no­log­i­cal­ly advanced and intel­li­gent solu­tions for the glob­al aero­space and defense indus­try and a Raytheon Tech­nolo­gies busi­ness.

The Lil­i­um Jet incep­tor will pro­vide safe and intu­itive han­dling qual­i­ties, easy access to func­tions, and an ergonom­ic design. While inte­grat­ing all con­ven­tion­al mechan­i­cal and elec­tri­cal flight con­trols into two side­sticks, the Collins Aero­space sys­tem brings a new pilot­ing phi­los­o­phy for sin­gle eVTOL pilot oper­a­tions.

The sys­tem will also be designed to bring sig­nif­i­cant space and weight sav­ings com­pared to con­ven­tion­al side­sticks. Lilium’s col­lab­o­ra­tion with Collins Aero­space con­tin­ues Lilium’s strat­e­gy of team­ing up with estab­lished tier one aero­space sup­pli­ers to sup­port cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and pre­pare the indus­tri­al ramp-up.

As part of the sup­pli­er agree­ment, Collins Aerospace’s exten­sive expe­ri­ence in devel­op­ing and cer­ti­fy­ing incep­tors for com­mer­cial jets will help cer­ti­fy the Lil­i­um Jet’s incep­tors to com­mer­cial avi­a­tion stan­dards.

Yves Yem­si, Chief Oper­at­ing Offi­cer at Lil­i­um, said: “Our part­ner­ship with Collins Aero­space allows us to reap the ben­e­fit of five decades of expe­ri­ence in flight deck con­trols.

“Our two com­pa­nies’ col­lab­o­ra­tive devel­op­ment approach allows us to re-imag­ine the cock­pit and pilot expe­ri­ence, and fur­ther strength­ens our path towards cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion.”

Collins Aero­space Pro­peller Sys­tems vice pres­i­dent and gen­er­al man­ag­er Jean-François Chanut added: “Our exten­sive expe­ri­ence of inno­vat­ing side­stick design is key when tack­ling the chal­lenges of redefin­ing the entire flight con­trol phi­los­o­phy for sin­gle-pilot air­craft in this new mar­ket of advanced region­al air mobil­i­ty.

“This part­ner­ship with Lil­i­um is a first step in defin­ing the right solu­tions towards more auto­mat­ed, sus­tain­able and safe oper­a­tions for the future of flight.”

Ear­li­er this month, Lithi­um-ion bat­tery com­pa­ny Ion­blox increased its Series B invest­ment round to $32 mil­lion with part­ners that include orig­i­nal investors Lil­i­um and Applied Ven­tures, who are joined by Temasek and Catalus Cap­i­tal.

The pre­vi­ous week, Lil­i­um signed an agree­ment with UK-based GKN Aero­space to col­lab­o­rate on the design and build of an inte­grat­ed and cer­ti­fi­able Elec­tri­cal Wiring Inter­con­nec­tion Sys­tem (EWIS).

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Jason Pritchard

Jason Pritchard is the Editor of eVTOL Insights. He holds a BA from Leicester's De Montfort University and has worked in Journalism and Public Relations for more than a decade. Outside of work, Jason enjoys playing and watching football and golf. He also has a keen interest in Ancient Egypt.

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