An elevated rail is used only for guiding these copters between cities, and perhaps pulling them forward but the extremely lightweight wire is not used to hold the vehicles up, so the infrastructure is extremely low cost, and allows for very high- speed traffic.

Use this instead of high speed trains or airplanes.
-- pashute, May 21 2019

Aerial Trolleys Vernon's similar idea. but not LTA [pashute, May 21 2019]

Tethered Aircraft PRT Similar but not personal and without switches [pashute, May 21 2019]

High Speed train Chinese style https://www.travelc...-trains/high-speed/
China has thousands of these miles of TGV lines. Miles of high speed lines in China = 18,000. Miles of high speed lines in USA = 0 miles. Both are totally astounding achievements in their own ways. [xenzag, May 21 2019, last modified May 22 2019]

In places like France, Japan and China, TGV trains travel faster than any helicopter. In the USA, high speed travel via anything but aircraft is totally unknown.
-- xenzag, May 21 2019


Rotorcraft are intrinsically limited in speed by the advancing/retreating blade asymmetry. They are also complex and grossly energy-inefficient.

There are motorbikes that can outpace the majority of helicopters.
-- 8th of 7, May 21 2019


This idea would make slightly more sense if, instead of using "copters", it used towed, winged gliders.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, May 21 2019


//co// with, //pter// wing. So the terminology does not rule out towed gliders.
-- pocmloc, May 22 2019


Tilting at copters are we. It has been done and they can be fast. As for tethers, they really have to pay in some special respect in this day and age of autonomy .
-- wjt, May 22 2019



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