this post was submitted on 13 Apr 2025
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[–] Carl@hexbear.net 18 points 1 week ago

It can reach speeds of 81 mph (130 km/h), with a cruising speed of 62 mph (100 km/h).

mmmkay. That's a significant time save when you can go as the crow flies, but you'll be limited in destinations by the availability of helicopter landing pads.

the aircraft can carry up to 485 pounds (220 kg)

There are only 2 seats, so 2 people and a bag each.

these air taxis can cover 22 miles (35 km) or 21 minutes of flight on a single charge

That's really not very much. Blade, a company that runs helicopter taxis in places like New York, has typical "short flight" distances of 10-100 miles, so one of these can take the shortest viable route once (bringing passengers with it on the trip back if it's lucky) before needing to recharge.

China is a fair bit denser than North America so there may be more of these short distance routes available, but dotting the cityscape with helicopter landing pads in order to take advantage of them would be a big ask and might not be possible.

The vehicle’s battery takes approximately two hours to fully charge.

21 minutes of flight per two hours of charging. Loading and unloading passengers will probably take time as well, so maybe we can call this 45 minutes of "operational time" per aircraft per two hours spent charging. That's a lot of idle time that your passengers will have to foot the bill for in order for your operation to be viable.