An end to tailbacks on the A4

A taxi service, only airborne. A private jet, but cheaper and fully electric. Meet Lilium, a German aviation startup dedicated to developing and building the world’s first fully-electric vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) jet.

Flight test engineer and TU alumnus Wouter Plaetinck (Aerospace Engineering) sees the VTOL jet as an addition to current transport resources both within and outside cities. Forget about the daily tailbacks on the A4 between Amsterdam and Delft, as the journey will only take 15 minutes with the Lilium jet. ‘And VTOLs only need a small landing platform, facilitating a point-to-point network, which means you do not waste time travelling from intermediary transport hubs to your final destination’.

Travelling with this ‘flying Uber’ is not only exciting, but also sustainable. The jet is fully electric and does not produce any operational emissions. And its silent engines and the limited amount of infrastructure required makes it ‘the way of travelling in the future’, as Plaetinck calls it.