You either get a chop-chop-chop, or a bzzzt, both incredibly loud. It's not the engine that makes the noise, it's mostly the propeller/rotor. The only advantage of electric VTOLs is easier manufacturing and better control.
Well, for instance, if they could line up the harmonics to create a missing fundamental (eg with the addition of external sounds), they could make propellers present an artificially lower pitch.
I would say the most viable solution is to not subject hundreds of thousands of people to an incredible amount of noise pollution, so that a couple of playboys get to skip a taxi ride to the airport.
Private-transport helicopters or equivalents have no place in cities. The gain is in no way worth the cost.
To complement that: they are only viable because they are heavily subsidized by the suffering of city dwellers. If you placed the cost of air pollution on the bill, they'd be much more expensive.
Its not just unreasonable because the person flying gets less utility that is otherwise lost. It is also an unfair form of theft.
I agree. I’d say, though, not just how silent, but how pleasant sounding. Aesthetics of sound could make or break this industry.