>>1896539The reason why helicopters were briefly used, and might make a return to big cities is because they were good at filling a niche planes couldn’t: short hops from the center of one city to another. This is where the helicopter made almost all the money, places that were too far/congested for cars but close enough that travel times to and from airports cancelled out time saved by flying. The Midwest/deserts are the exact opposite of this. Cities are spread out far from eachother and congestion between them is practically a non-issue. There’s also no shortage of land here so airports are usually closer to city centers than they are back east. Essentially anywhere that would have the traffic to justify a helicopter route out here already has an airport route that’s faster and cheaper.
People have this strange idea that helicopters are cheaper to maintain because they aren’t as fast as planes, but that isn’t the case. Especially since most helicopters now use turbine engines, they’re more expensive than a prop aircraft to maintain but have less seating capacity than a jet, and get outrun by both.
Maybe this could work in Texas where you have a bunch of large cities that are relatively close to each other, but calling it the “midwest” is a stretch.
