Originally Posted by
Ian W
There is a niche market for these in transporting and delivering/placing loads like say a 10 ton transformer to a remote location and placing it accurately on its 'plinth' . The task would otherwise require remaking roads, long careful low-loader transport then cranes with the site prepared for the cranes. I would think that operations in remote areas could keep a small fleet busy. There may also be a task to deliver offshore windmills to their sites or carrying maintenance crews to offshore windmills and delivering them to the gearbox nacelle by winching them down. There are no shortages of potential tasks.
Sounds to me as though, in order to accomplish these sort of tasks, the craft would require an "auto-hover" capability. Which, for what is effectively a huge sail, would be something of a challenge.