Vertol (FT)

A vertol is a type of human aircraft which relies on jet engines for vertical lift. Vertols can take off and land vertically, hover, and fly in all directions. This allows vertols to be used in congested areas where fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters cannot operate due to space constraints, such as in heavily congested urban aerospace. The term vertol typically refers to atmospheric aircraft, even though many types of aerospacecraft operate like vertols while within the atmosphere. Under some broad classifications, vehicles like airbikes and the recent hovering vehicles of the UNSC and the Federation may also be considered vertols, though these are typically restricted in flight capacity by engine or weight limitations.

The first vertols were created in the mid-21st century, and have become a fixture of human aerospace technology since. A majority of vertols are utility craft like APEX's V-26 Ganesha all-purpose carrier, Medved Industrial's popular Intruder cargo vertol, or the ubiquitous Kawazaki SuRi-38.

While vertols have been getting smaller and smaller, the idea of airborne highways of flying cars is a distant sight in the Southern Sphere. It still costs too much for the average citizen to own and maintain a vertol, and a single-engined vertol is noisy enough to awaken the entire neighbourhood, so no flying to work any time soon (unless your home is the size of the neighbourhood). For those that can afford them, opulent private vertols that skirt aerospace laws and joyflights into the wilderness are just another luxury that they can enjoy.

Nonetheless, in the modern day, some companies have begun operating "air bus" services to ferry their personnel from their suburbs to their workplaces, and "air taxi" services are becoming more common, though still highly expensive at over 300 don per ride on planets like New Mansan.