Lilium Aviation flies prototype of its 160-knot all-electric VTOL

On Saturday, July 8, 2017 at 3:41:12 PM UTC-5, wrote:
(Reposting with change to Subject Line.)

-------------
On Wednesday, July 5, 2017 at 5:29:32 PM UTC-5, Vaughn Simon wrote:
On 7/5/2017 2:21 AM, wrote:
And there is an even more important term that needs to be re-looked at:

VTOL.

Helicopters are VTOL aircraft. Â*Quadcopters are VTOLs. Â*But there is a special
subcategory of VTOLs that have a much greater efficiency in speed and range.
This is VTOL aircraft that can cruise horizontally with wing lift used to
efficiently overcome gravity rather than rotor lift or jet lift. Â*This
category includes aircraft such as the AV-8 Harrier, the V-22 Osprey and
the F-35. Â*Because this group of aircraft has such strong advantages over
VTOL aircraft that are not capable of horizontal cruise (using wing lift),
it would be very helpful to have a special term for this group. Â*One
idea here would be:


Just FYI, a few years ago the FAA wrote a bunch of regulations for a new
category of aircraft called "Powered Lift" A close reading of the below
definition shows that it applies to the aircraft you mention above.

FAA definition of "Powered Lift": Powered-lift means a heavier-than-air
aircraft capable of vertical takeoff, vertical landing, and low speed
flight that depends principally on engine-driven lift devices or engine
thrust for lift during these flight regimes and on nonrotating
airfoil(s) for lift during horizontal flight.

Thanks for clueing me in about that. Â*I see that my thoughts are in line with what the FAA has been doing.

I wonder how they came up with that term "Powered Lift" and what other terms they had considered instead of this. Â*For me, those two words are not sufficient for conveying the efficiency that comes with the "nonrotating airfoils for lift during horizontal flight" part of the definition.

So maybe someone at the FAA would like to consider the much more comprehensive term being presented he

Vertical
TakeOff &
Landing /
Horizontal
Cruise

When compressed down into its acronym form, it has the same number of syllables as what they've been using. Â*And this term even uses a few less letters/spaces, while conveying a much more complete meaning. Â*To simply say "Powered Lift"...
It seems like every time you write that you'd need to mark it with an asterisk:

Powered Lift*

* - not to include rotating airfoils for lift during horizontal flight.

To be fair, one could say the same about Vertolhoc, considering how all rotorcraft perform "horizontal flight":

Vertolhoc*

* - horizontal cruise accomplished with non-rotating airfoils.

And my argument would be that it is far easier to imply the latter than the former. Â*Kind of like how the most general term "aircraft" implies non-rotating airfoils (let alone heavier than air). Â*So it is common to see it specified:

rotary wing aircraft

...even though helos were aircraft to begin with.


HMMM. Now that I think about it, this entire issue could be fixed with this little tweak:

Vertical
TakeOff &
Landing /
Horizontal
Plane

The new acronym being Vertolhop. Â*No asterisk necessary! Â*And the connotations are even better, because these are aircraft that let you hop from one place to the other flying as an airplane, 'plane-ing' the air with your fixed airfoils.

VERTOLHOP.

I hope the FAA is listening.

~ COPE
-------------


To be fair, one could say the same about Vertolhoc, considering how all rotorcraft perform "horizontal flight":

Here I had intended to write "horizontal cruise", per the acronym as first proposed.

And also in the new subject line I used, it probably would have been good if I had given some indication of the subject line that this thread had originated with:
"Lilium Aviation flies prototype of its 160-knot all-electric VTOL".


As for acronyms that are widely in use, I have long wondered why people say VEEtol and not VERtol. To me, the acronym would flow much better if spelled out as the word Vertol. And then it dawned on me that it could very well be that the reason this did not catch on is because of some trademark issue by a company like Boeing Vertol.

So this new acronym that's been proposed today could turn out to be a reclaiming of the "vertol" part, because I have never seen the word Vertolhop used ever before. And if this word has been invented here, then I don't see how Boeing or some other established company would have grounds to claim this word for their own.

I just now googled it, and a grand total of three pages were found. All three were from the website "Vertoshop.ru". Poking into those pages, it appears that the character string "www.vertolhop.ru" was machine generated, because this was in a pulldown list of "possible errors in typing" for those trying to get to the url vertoshop.ru.

So Google is giving strong evidence that the word Vertolhop has not been used before.

~ COPE

As for acronyms that are widely in use, I have long wondered why people say
VEEtol and not VERtol. To me, the acronym would flow much better if spelled
out as the word Vertol.

Speaking of words flowing smoothly, aircraft in this new category (currently given the official title of "Powered Lift") would be known as:

Vertolhoppers.

And given the natural evolution of language in how things get shortened and smoothed over once people know what you're talking about ...as with how the "horseless carriage" got shortened to "car", we can expect that Vertolhopper would get shortened to Hopper.

Another distinction can be made with the subcategory of VTOL/HP aircraft that operate autonomously. These could be known as:

AVTOL/HP

Autonomous
Vertical
TakeOff &
Landing /
Horizontal
Plane

The acronym here can be pronounced as 'Avertolhop'. And this would have the connotation of how mishaps would be averted by removing the pilot out of the loop.

And the point made in a previous post about how computers are integral to these aircraft flying, this is even more so when operating autonomously. Here another tribute can be made. This subcategory of aircraft can be called:

Grace Hoppers

While Grace Hopper was not a pilot (as far as I know) she made huge accomplishments in computer programming. Through computer science, she made great contributions to aerospace. It's said she's the person who came up with the term 'computer bug'. And bugs fly too in a vertical takeoff/landing mode. And the name 'grace' seems to capture the beauty of flying. The AVTOL/HP is a 'graceful hopper'. That's along with the 'grace' of not needing any piloting skill to operate the vehicle. So it works on several levels.

I wonder if Lilium would consider naming their first flying car the Grace Hopper. Such a name could define this new category.

And according to Wikipedia, she had Dutch ancestry. That's got significant overlap with Deutsch.

~ COPE



On Saturday, July 8, 2017 at 4:01:33 PM UTC-5, wrote:
On Saturday, July 8, 2017 at 3:41:12 PM UTC-5, wrote:
(Reposting with change to Subject Line.)

-------------
On Wednesday, July 5, 2017 at 5:29:32 PM UTC-5, Vaughn Simon wrote:
On 7/5/2017 2:21 AM, wrote:
And there is an even more important term that needs to be re-looked at:

VTOL.

Helicopters are VTOL aircraft. Â*Quadcopters are VTOLs. Â*But there is a special
subcategory of VTOLs that have a much greater efficiency in speed and range.
This is VTOL aircraft that can cruise horizontally with wing lift used to
efficiently overcome gravity rather than rotor lift or jet lift. Â*This
category includes aircraft such as the AV-8 Harrier, the V-22 Osprey and
the F-35. Â*Because this group of aircraft has such strong advantages over
VTOL aircraft that are not capable of horizontal cruise (using wing lift),
it would be very helpful to have a special term for this group. Â*One
idea here would be:


Just FYI, a few years ago the FAA wrote a bunch of regulations for a new
category of aircraft called "Powered Lift" A close reading of the below
definition shows that it applies to the aircraft you mention above.

FAA definition of "Powered Lift": Powered-lift means a heavier-than-air
aircraft capable of vertical takeoff, vertical landing, and low speed
flight that depends principally on engine-driven lift devices or engine
thrust for lift during these flight regimes and on nonrotating
airfoil(s) for lift during horizontal flight.

Thanks for clueing me in about that. Â*I see that my thoughts are in line with what the FAA has been doing.

I wonder how they came up with that term "Powered Lift" and what other terms they had considered instead of this. Â*For me, those two words are not sufficient for conveying the efficiency that comes with the "nonrotating airfoils for lift during horizontal flight" part of the definition.

So maybe someone at the FAA would like to consider the much more comprehensive term being presented he

Vertical
TakeOff &
Landing /
Horizontal
Cruise

When compressed down into its acronym form, it has the same number of syllables as what they've been using. Â*And this term even uses a few less letters/spaces, while conveying a much more complete meaning. Â*To simply say "Powered Lift"...
It seems like every time you write that you'd need to mark it with an asterisk:

Powered Lift*

* - not to include rotating airfoils for lift during horizontal flight.

To be fair, one could say the same about Vertolhoc, considering how all rotorcraft perform "horizontal flight":

Vertolhoc*

* - horizontal cruise accomplished with non-rotating airfoils.

And my argument would be that it is far easier to imply the latter than the former. Â*Kind of like how the most general term "aircraft" implies non-rotating airfoils (let alone heavier than air). Â*So it is common to see it specified:

rotary wing aircraft

...even though helos were aircraft to begin with.


HMMM. Now that I think about it, this entire issue could be fixed with this little tweak:

Vertical
TakeOff &
Landing /
Horizontal
Plane

The new acronym being Vertolhop. Â*No asterisk necessary! Â*And the connotations are even better, because these are aircraft that let you hop from one place to the other flying as an airplane, 'plane-ing' the air with your fixed airfoils.

VERTOLHOP.

I hope the FAA is listening.

~ COPE
-------------


To be fair, one could say the same about Vertolhoc, considering how all rotorcraft perform "horizontal flight":

Here I had intended to write "horizontal cruise", per the acronym as first proposed.

And also in the new subject line I used, it probably would have been good if I had given some indication of the subject line that this thread had originated with:
"Lilium Aviation flies prototype of its 160-knot all-electric VTOL".


As for acronyms that are widely in use, I have long wondered why people say VEEtol and not VERtol. To me, the acronym would flow much better if spelled out as the word Vertol. And then it dawned on me that it could very well be that the reason this did not catch on is because of some trademark issue by a company like Boeing Vertol.

So this new acronym that's been proposed today could turn out to be a reclaiming of the "vertol" part, because I have never seen the word Vertolhop used ever before. And if this word has been invented here, then I don't see how Boeing or some other established company would have grounds to claim this word for their own.

I just now googled it, and a grand total of three pages were found. All three were from the website "Vertoshop.ru". Poking into those pages, it appears that the character string "www.vertolhop.ru" was machine generated, because this was in a pulldown list of "possible errors in typing" for those trying to get to the url vertoshop.ru.

So Google is giving strong evidence that the word Vertolhop has not been used before.

~ COPE

On Saturday, July 8, 2017 at 6:19:45 PM UTC-5, wrote:
As for acronyms that are widely in use, I have long wondered why people say
VEEtol and not VERtol. To me, the acronym would flow much better if spelled
out as the word Vertol.

Speaking of words flowing smoothly, aircraft in this new category (currently given the official title of "Powered Lift") would be known as:

Vertolhoppers.

And given the natural evolution of language in how things get shortened and smoothed over once people know what you're talking about ...as with how the "horseless carriage" got shortened to "car", we can expect that Vertolhopper would get shortened to Hopper.

Another distinction can be made with the subcategory of VTOL/HP aircraft that operate autonomously. These could be known as:

AVTOL/HP

Autonomous
Vertical
TakeOff &
Landing /
Horizontal
Plane

The acronym here can be pronounced as 'Avertolhop'. And this would have the connotation of how mishaps would be averted by removing the pilot out of the loop.

And the point made in a previous post about how computers are integral to these aircraft flying, this is even more so when operating autonomously. Here another tribute can be made. This subcategory of aircraft can be called:

Grace Hoppers

While Grace Hopper was not a pilot (as far as I know) she made huge accomplishments in computer programming. Through computer science, she made great contributions to aerospace. It's said she's the person who came up with the term 'computer bug'. And bugs fly too in a vertical takeoff/landing mode. And the name 'grace' seems to capture the beauty of flying. The AVTOL/HP is a 'graceful hopper'. That's along with the 'grace' of not needing any piloting skill to operate the vehicle. So it works on several levels.

I wonder if Lilium would consider naming their first flying car the Grace Hopper. Such a name could define this new category.

And according to Wikipedia, she had Dutch ancestry. That's got significant overlap with Deutsch.

Whoa. I just took a closer look at that Wikipedia article. While she was born Grace Murray, she took her surname from the man she was married to...

Vince Foster Hopper.

Interesting. For any aircraft category that gets invented, there is sure to be fatalities that will happen, sooner or later. Any vehicle will involve some risk of getting hurt while using it. If the name Grace Hoppers were to catch on, there would be this obscure connection to Hope, Arkansas. Even more obscure is the fact that this more famous Vince Foster's death happened on the 24th anniversary of Neil Armstrong's small step/giant leap. In total, there have been 24 human beings who have ventured off beyond low earth orbit. The Grace Hopper name tribute, followed down this particular rabbit hole, can be connected right back to aerospace.

~ COPE