I have one idea for real. Helicopters!
In our country, Czech republic, the trains runs very slow. The distance is about 200 km. If you go by high-speed train, it takes 2 hours. By plane 1 hour. But if there is a helicopter transport it could be 1/2 hour or less. But the usage is very high (for this distance it's 700 l! Cost of fuel here is 2$/l => 1400$/run => 100 - 140$ / p****enger...) and one helicopter could carry only about 10-15 people? But there's one big advantage: You can start from the heliport in the city and land in the center on the another.
Your ideas?
They can be done. I mean, you can paint them, so the problem is not from graphics. Other thing is that you want to see them landing and taking off as in real life, that is, vertically. I'm afraid it was discarded due to its complexity.
P.S: I've already include some helicopters that can carry out freights in the freight planes pak list.
I think this needs new section in simutrans menu.
Please
read what people tell you. The idea of helicopters in simutrans is not new, it has come up several times in the past and...
So unless you want to program that yourself, or know someone who would, that's pretty much the end of this idea.
Oh and BTW: helicopter flights are much more expensive than just covering fuel cost IRL.
Another one : I have never seen transport companies uses helicopters for carry p****engers. ::)
Yes they are, very maintenance heavy deu to the hughe amount of rotating parts that need to work together.
You know the Helicopters in TransportTycoon? There you have helicopter-platforms at the airports and you can build it in the middle of the cities. Also you can fly the p****engers to the oil platforms like the real-life. It was a nice addition.
Sure : benefit should adjust the effort
Helicopter :D
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BudapestTRansport you should not only post pictures.
Write a little bit more what you want.
I heard of a line helicopter flight twice a day from Helsinki to Tallin (with a decent price).
Yes, there WAS a chopper airliner from Helsinki to Tallinn. They never back to positive business after major accident 2005 and p****enger line stop 2008. Company fly medical choppers to 2010. Today, Copterline is in bankcrupt and, unfortuanly, some medical helicopter in Finland need a new operator.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copterline
In Israel there are many helicopters but mostly for the army use. Also, medical helicopters are left and not in use. :(
Copters' commercial flights are not cheap indeed, but major megalopolis have some air taxi services. Actually, São Paulo (my home town) has the 2nd or 3rd larger copter fleet (can I apply fleet to copters?) of the world. I think NY has the bigger one. Commercial copter flights begin, in late 80's or early 90's, as an (expensive) alternative to the immense road traffic in the major cities, and, in fact, the business flourished. Nowdays, São Paulo has almost as much traffic in the skies as in the roads, and i'm not exaggerating.
Air taxi is an profitable business for short distance flights, but it has a very specific public: wealthy businessman, executives, etc. Air taxi companies operate smaller and lighter copters, that have low running and maintenance costs. Heavier ones are owned basically by private owners (banks, industries, rich people, etc). Then, we can easily see that, although a modern solution for road traffic in big cities, copters aren't a m**** transit mean. Personally, i don't think simutrans need copters, at least not the TTD's copters. IF someone want to do it, i suggest that it has to be profitable only for short distances and only for p****engers, maybe mail, too.