Following the Money to Green Flight

Dean Sigler Announcements, Electric Powerplants, Hybrid Aircraft, Sky Taxis, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

The path to green flight is paved with money.  In our transactional world, good ideas are sometimes rewarded with filthy lucre, even if those ideas are intended to clean up a besmirched world.  Several examples of clean aviation attracting solid investments follow, along with some stumbling on unexpected obstacles. Jetson ONE For a flying machine lighter than most of its prospective pilots, the Jetson ONE has attracted a host of followers, including the host of a late-night chat show.   Besides receiving 3,000 purchase requests in two months the firm has sold its initial production runs for 2022 and 2023. At $92,000 a unit, 100 craft in the first year would net $9.2 million, enough to finance the simple assembly …

Lilium Elevates Five-Passenger Uber-Ready Vehicle

Dean Sigler Sky Taxis, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Uber Elevate, headed toward its third annual meeting in Washington, D. C., has established guidelines for what it wants to see flying in its service.  Lilium, a German electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing maker, has flown a vehicle that seems to meet those guidelines. The web site, A New Domain.net, notes, “The authors of the Uber paper point out that the high-profile German concept, the Lilium, is a ‘push to extremely high levels of distribution while coupling the vertical lift in closely with the wing high-lift system.’ The concern here, however, is that such jet-lift approaches “will require substantially higher power for takeoff and landing, with greater challenges operating quietly within cities,” according to the Uber paper.” “From the looks of it, …