If you're flying airport to airport, I'd expect an airplane (King Air for 6 pax, Cirrus SR22 for 2 pax) would be cheaper, quieter, and safer. Although maybe it's easier to get into SFO using a helicopter instead of a General Aviation airplane?
Airbus-owned Voom brings its on-demand helicopter service to the US
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Re: Airbus-owned Voom brings its on-demand helicopter service to the US
#32Not to be confused with Boom. https://boomsupersonic.com/
Re: Airbus-owned Voom brings its on-demand helicopter service to the US
#33I've long held that 'entrepreneur-friendly' investors on the Peninsula should have some kind of Heli-shuttle that runs up the western-most side (aka follow 280 for the most part) of the Peninsula to San Francisco or sponsor some kind of vice-versa for city-based founders.
Instead we're left with the alternative of wasting half a day or more running down and up. I get that you shouldn't hate the player but hate the game but in this case the game kind of sucks and that's just for local folks.
Re: Airbus-owned Voom brings its on-demand helicopter service to the US
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
Off topic but you may find this interesting: https://www.jsx.com/destinations I hope we see more of this type of alternative options...opt-out of TSA (until its so big it gets attention), P2P, nimble, small-scale.
Need to fly the in-laws who are old up to the Bay Area for Xmas. Just checked the schedule for this. No flights flying on the 23rd. Alaska air it is.
>> Now book flights through December 18, 2019
Re: Airbus-owned Voom brings its on-demand helicopter service to the US
#35I find it depressing that non-emergency helicopters are legal. The amount of noise they create to transport a few people ends up being a net negative on quality of life.
Not to mention the huge carbon footprint they leave.
Re: Airbus-owned Voom brings its on-demand helicopter service to the US
#36Not sure the target market is for this since it's between airports. The Palo Alto to SFO one doesn't really help you get into the city because much of the traffic you'd have to drive through is between SFO and downtown. I guess they couldn't get rights to land somewhere downtown (after a bit of research it actually looks like there are no active heliports in SF except one at UCSF in the Dogpatch. Color me unsurprised…
Building a heliport or just using a yacht with a helipad in the bay just off of SF would be cool. They could use a speed boat to ferry to shore, plus less concern about noise.
Re: Airbus-owned Voom brings its on-demand helicopter service to the US
#37I'm an LA resident and there's not many kinds of businesses I think should be categorically banned, but helicopter transit is one of them. It's a public nuisance. I will regularly need to interrupt phone conversations to let a helicopter pass over, which is sometimes impossible when they decide to hover (though this is usually police helicopters).
Many motorcycles are even louder, regularly setting off car alarms and we don't do anything about those.
Re: Airbus-owned Voom brings its on-demand helicopter service to the US
#38If you're flying airport to airport, I'd expect an airplane (King Air for 6 pax, Cirrus SR22 for 2 pax) would be cheaper, quieter, and safer. Although maybe it's easier to get into SFO using a helicopter instead of a General Aviation airplane?
SFO would be much easier to get into since helicopters are typically cleared direct to the helipad without sequencing for a runway. The smaller airports would be no problem though.
Re: Airbus-owned Voom brings its on-demand helicopter service to the US
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
It would be better to set a price per minute, depending on decibels and population density of the area.
That price would either be insultingly low to anyone impacted by the horrific noise, or so high as to make running such a business uneconomic. Just ban the bloody things outright.
You don't know what is and is not economical. Pick a price that will reduce average taxes on affected citizens enough that they are indifferent if the flights occur or not. If that price is too high to make the business economical, it will not occur, which is economically efficient.
Re: Airbus-owned Voom brings its on-demand helicopter service to the US
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
It would be better to set a price per minute, depending on decibels and population density of the area.
I don't think that making a luxury service more expensive will discourage use, unless we can make each flight cost tens of thousands of dollars. I'd rather just ban assholery than create a steep asshole tax. It doesn't bother me that a few rich people will have to wait in traffic like everyone else (or better - stop traveling for cross-town meetings and take a phone call!). Leave low altitude flight to emergency serv…
The point isn't to discourage use per se. The point is to force the entity producing negative externalities to pay for the damages they are incurring. If the business is still economical to run after these costs, it should be run, and the money can be kept to reduce taxes, pay for other noise abatement, etc.