Lilium achieves first main wing transition for all-electric aircraft [video]

Re:Lilium achieves first main wing transition for all-electr... by inb4_cancelled on Sunday June 12, 2022 @01:49PM (#31716577)

You either get a chop-chop-chop, or a bzzzt, both incredibly loud. It's not the engine that makes the noise, it's mostly the propeller/rotor. The only advantage of electric VTOLs is easier manufacturing and better control.

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Re:Lilium achieves first main wing transition for all-electr... by dr_dshiv on Sunday June 12, 2022 @02:37PM (#31717026)

> You either get a chop-chop-chop, or a bzzzt

Well, for instance, if they could line up the harmonics to create a missing fundamental (eg with the addition of external sounds), they could make propellers present an artificially lower pitch.

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Re:Lilium achieves first main wing transition for all-electr... by Judgmentality on Sunday June 12, 2022 @02:54PM (#31717195)

Your solution to them being too loud and annoying is to make them louder and hopefully less annoying?

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Re:Lilium achieves first main wing transition for all-electr... by dr_dshiv on Sunday June 12, 2022 @03:58PM (#31717720)

Yes. It’s possible that louder but less annoying is more viable, wouldn’t you say?

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Re:Lilium achieves first main wing transition for all-electr... by vkou on Sunday June 12, 2022 @04:34PM (#31718014)

I would say the most viable solution is to not subject hundreds of thousands of people to an incredible amount of noise pollution, so that a couple of playboys get to skip a taxi ride to the airport.

Private-transport helicopters or equivalents have no place in cities. The gain is in no way worth the cost.

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Re:Lilium achieves first main wing transition for all-electr... by savingsPossible on Sunday June 12, 2022 @07:47PM (#31719372)

To complement that: they are only viable because they are heavily subsidized by the suffering of city dwellers. If you placed the cost of air pollution on the bill, they'd be much more expensive.

Its not just unreasonable because the person flying gets less utility that is otherwise lost. It is also an unfair form of theft.

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Re:Lilium achieves first main wing transition for all-electr... by marcosdumay on Sunday June 12, 2022 @03:16PM (#31717364)

There is plenty of space to change the number of propellers, total area, and rotational velocity and change the sound profile of the plane.

There is also a lot of space on how you maneuver it on the landing and take-out, so you make less sound when it matters the most.

There is the entire thing about minimizing weight too, that also reduces sound, but it's also not clear how much can be done.

Overall, it's not clear at all how much noise the eVTOL planes will make.

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Re:Lilium achieves first main wing transition for all-electr... by detritus on Sunday June 12, 2022 @05:01PM (#31718224)

Props need feathers.

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