The simplicity and elegance of this craft amazed me. I just had to do a blog on it.
Lilium a company from Bavaria Germany has tested what could be the world's first totally electric VTOL jet. The two-seater prototype flew without a problem, including a transition maneuver where the craft went from a vertical takeoff seamlessly into conventional forward moving flight. A vertical takeoff and landing is typical for this type of aircraft or VTOL for short.
Lilium's eventual plan is to release a five-seater version. The five seater version of the jet will have 36 ducted fan motors, 12 on each wing and 6 on the swiveling structures that come out of the nose.
Lilium’s main differentiating point from other much more complicated VTOL craft is that they have a simpler yet elegant solution fixed-wing VTOL. Lilium’s VTOL uses wing housings to support an array of electric motors. The jet requires no gearboxes, variable-pitch propellers, no water cooling and no aerodynamic steering flaps like normal craft. It simply uses tiltable electric engines mounted in a wing. At takeoff the wings are pointed down and when the pilot is ready to fly it forward the wings tilt and transition to horizontal positions creating forward thrust. This craft falls under the category of a light sport aircraft and this only requires a minimum of 20 hours of flight training for a pilot's license. This means that more people could potentially operate the aircraft making it possible to be a suitable option for a personal flying car. If four engines fail the aircraft can still operate in VTOL maneuvers.
Source of information: http://www.3xploi7.com/2017/05/worlds-first-flying-cars-with-all.html