We build the track record for scientific simulation

Why this exists

Simulation now shapes what gets built and what gets tested next: which cell design to make, which electrolyte to try, which experiment earns a slot on the cycler. Yet the case for trusting a model usually lives in its own validation report, written by the people who built it, on cases they chose.

When several models disagree, there is rarely a shared record of how each has done when the answer was not known in advance. Planeworks exists to keep that record. Our study, The blind test, sets out the evidence for why it matters.

Neutral by design

Planeworks doesn’t build or sell simulators, and Lilienthal doesn’t replace them. It works above the tools teams already run, whether that is an open-source package, a commercial suite, an in-house code or a machine-learning surrogate. A model’s record reflects its results and nothing else. That neutrality is the product.

Where we start

We are starting with batteries and materials, for three reasons. Ageing tests take months. Teams routinely run several models of the same cell or material side by side. And the decisions that matter most sit in the conditions where models are least anchored: low temperature, fast charging, new chemistries.

The same approach applies wherever simulations are checked against experiments, and we intend to follow it there.

The names

Planeworks

Fold a paper plane, throw it, watch where it lands, refold it and throw again. Nobody believes a plane works because of how it looks on the desk. It works when it flies, and the only way to know is to throw it and watch. The company is named for that loop: a claim, a test, and a record of what happened.

Lilienthal

Between 1891 and 1896, Otto Lilienthal made close to 2,000 brief flights in 16 glider designs.¹ He published tables of the lift he measured, and they became the starting point for many experimenters, including Wilbur and Orville Wright.²

In 1901 the Wrights flew a glider designed with those numbers. It produced only a third of the lift their calculations had predicted. In October that year they built a wind tunnel and measured for themselves, arriving at a value of 0.0033 for Smeaton’s coefficient, against the 0.005 that had been in use since the 1700s.²³

Lilienthal’s published record is what let his work be tested, corrected and built on. That is the idea the product carries: write the prediction down, then let the test decide.

1. Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, “Lilienthal Glider”. Link
2. Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, “Researching the Wright Way”. Link
3. NASA Glenn Research Center, “1901 Wind Tunnel Tests”. Link

Where we are

Lilienthal is in private build. The waitlist opens on 1 November 2026, and demos begin on 1 December 2026. We share progress as we go on LinkedIn.