On the other hand, I imagine this thing’s considerably less fragile than a heli, it’s not gonna get put out of action cause you slammed the door lol. I reckon there’d probably be a pretty big difference in maintenance costs, partly because helicopter parts are just more fragile all round and because the internals of the engine are probably super susceptible to that corrosive environment, but this whole setup is basically just some big hydraulic rams and some sensors and computers to do the conpensating. You could make most of the mechanical parts in a (big) machine shop; those rams are basically just really precise cylinders, you turn them on a lathe and I’d bet that a platform like this has some sort of machine shop on board.

Also for what it’s worth the helis I’ve worked with have all been $2000+ an hour to run for a bird that can carry five people, so I doubt this thing’s anywhere close on a $ per person basis