Helicopters are one of the most misunderstood vehicle classes in OpenTTD. While they look incredibly versatile because they do not require runways, their high operating costs and low capacity make them a trap for unaware players in vanilla games.
However, when paired with industry mods like FIRS, they become highly strategic tools for boosting production.
1. The Vanilla Reality
In an unmodded, vanilla game, helicopters are almost never profitable. You should generally avoid using them for standard transit lines.
Why They Lose Money
- The High Cost-to-Capacity Ratio: Helicopters have massive running costs but very low passenger/cargo capacities compared to planes or trains.
- The Speed Penalty: While they fly in a straight line, their top speeds are significantly lower than mid-to-late-game jet aircraft.
- The Oil Rig Illusion: Vanilla oil rigs generate passengers (workers), suggesting a helicopter shuttle service. However, delivering passengers to a vanilla rig provides zero production boost to the oil output. The low passenger volume ensures the helicopter route operates at a loss.
The Only Vanilla Exception
The only time a helicopter makes money in vanilla is on an incredibly short, high-volume passenger shuttle between two massive, adjacent cities where land is too expensive to clear for an airport runway or train track. Even then, a bus or tram is usually more cost-effective.
2. The Modded Savior
When you play with industry NewGRFs like FIRS, SPI, or XIS, helicopters completely shift from a money sink into a vital economic engine. These mods introduce a “Supplies” mechanic that rewards frequency over volume.
[Supply Yard / Refinery]
▼ (Loads Engineering / Farm Supplies)
🚁 HELICOPTER (Flies over mountains/water)
▼ (Drops off small, steady trickle)
[Remote Mine / Oil Rig] ──► PRODUCTION SKYROCKETS!
Helicopters Deliver Supplies
- Low Volume, High Frequency: FIRS industries do not need thousands of crates of supplies at once to stay boosted; they just need a steady trickle (usually a few dozen crates every 30–60 days). Helicopters carry exactly this small amount perfectly.
- Terrain Defense: FIRS raw industries (remote mountain coal mines, deep forests, offshore oil rigs) are often placed in terrible, cramped terrain. Helicopters ignore mountains, water, and gridlocked rail networks entirely.
- Preventing Production Decay: To keep an industry’s production tier maximized, supplies must arrive before the internal “Supplies Delivered Recently” timer runs out. The point-to-point speed of a helicopter guarantees your supply chain never lapses.
3. Strategic Helicopter Setups (FIRS)
To make your helicopters highly profitable, use them as feeder mechanisms rather than mainline haulers:
The Rig Booster
- Setup: Your massive oil tankers or trains haul raw oil from a harbor to a refinery. The refinery produces Manufacturing Supplies as a byproduct.
- Helicopter Role: Station a helicopter at the refinery. Have it load those supplies and fly them straight back to the offshore oil rig.
- The Payoff: The rig’s oil production triples, instantly filling your high-profit tankers/trains.
The Mountain Feeder
- Setup: A Machine Shop in a valley produces Engineering Supplies. A lucrative Coal Mine is stuck on a steep, jagged mountaintop where building a railway is too expensive.
- Helicopter Role: Fly supplies from the valley floor directly to the mountaintop mine.
- The Payoff: The helicopter makes a modest profit delivering the supplies, but your primary valley train network makes millions hauling the massive influx of newly generated coal.
4. Best Practices
Order Configuration for Supply Choppers
Always use Conditional Orders for supply helicopters. Set the order to: If load is less than 100%, Go to Depot. This prevents your helicopters from flying empty and burning massive amounts of maintenance cash when supply production temporarily dips.