Lilium Begins Certification Test Facility Construction with SEGULA Technologies for Jet

Lil­i­um announced this week, it has begun con­struc­tion of a test facil­i­ty for inte­gra­tion and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion test­ing of its Jet, reports a press release. Designed in part­ner­ship with SEGULA Tech­nolo­gies, a glob­al engi­neer­ing group, it is locat­ed at Lilium’s HQ near Munich, Ger­many. This state-of-the-art facil­i­ty is due to become oper­a­tional in the late Sum­mer.

The test site is to house a com­plete, ful­ly inte­grat­ed air­craft and be employed for tri­alling of the Jet’s avion­ics, flight con­trols, propul­sion sys­tem and elec­tri­cal pow­er sys­tem. As part of the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion cam­paign, the facil­i­ty will be used to sim­u­late flights and ver­i­fy the per­for­mance of the eVTOL through mul­ti­ple flight pro­files.

The con­struc­tion of the site is an impor­tant next step. As an EASA Design Organ­i­sa­tion Approval hold­er, Lil­i­um “is qual­i­fied to under­take con­for­mi­ty of test arti­cles and test­ing to demon­strate com­pli­ance against the applic­a­ble cer­ti­fi­ca­tion basis,” explains the release. “The facil­i­ty will enable the com­pa­ny to plan and per­form such tasks inde­pen­dent­ly of EASA with an agreed lev­el of involve­ment.”

Stephen Vel­la­cott

Stephen Vel­la­cott, CTO of Lil­i­um, com­ment­ed, “The test facil­i­ty will be a cor­ner­stone of our cer­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­gram, allow­ing us to test mul­ti­ple flight mis­sions as well as fail­ure sce­nar­ios in a con­trolled envi­ron­ment on the ground. Along­side the flight demon­stra­tion, ground-based test­ing will play a crit­i­cal role on the path towards cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of the Jet.”

He added, “We are pleased to have such an expe­ri­enced and reli­able part­ner in SEGULA Tech­nolo­gies for the test rig design. We espe­cial­ly val­ue the team’s mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary approach.”

SEGULA serves all major indus­tri­al sec­tors, includ­ing auto­mo­tive, aero­space, ener­gy, rail, naval and tele­coms. With a pres­ence in more than 30 coun­tries and 140 offices world­wide, the com­pa­ny is com­mit­ted to build­ing close rela­tion­ships with its clients via its 15,000 employ­ees.

Ulrich Wei­de, Head of Busi­ness Devel­op­ment in the Aero­space Depart­ment at SEGULA Tech­nolo­gies, com­ment­ed, “As engi­neers, it is a great expe­ri­ence to be involved in such a project. First, because it rep­re­sents a fur­ther step in decar­bon­is­ing the avi­a­tion indus­try and sec­ond, we’ve put togeth­er a glob­al team of experts. Togeth­er, we’re not just build­ing air­craft, we’re pio­neer­ing the future of flight.”

Cov­er­ing a total area of 26,000 sq. ft, the test facil­i­ty is to com­prise of an air­craft mount­ing frame; an air­flow man­age­ment sys­tem to enable rep­re­sen­ta­tive flight con­di­tions; and charg­ing and cool­ing equip­ment for the Lil­i­um Jet’s bat­ter­ies. Aero­dy­nam­ic test­ing will be sup­port­ed by a pow­er­ful 1.2‑megawatt blow­er, sup­plied by inter­na­tion­al engi­neer­ing com­pa­ny VIRO, that can sim­u­late cross and tail­winds of up to 40 mph.

For more infor­ma­tion

www.lilium.com

www.segulatechnologies.com

(Top image: Lil­i­um)

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