
Why Is Kitty Hawk's Flying Taxi Taking Off in New Zealand Instead of California? - ekianjo
https://reason.com/archives/2018/03/15/why-is-silicon-valleys-cool-new-self-fly
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adventured
As much as I'd like to see this being tested in California, this is also
perhaps more of benefit to both the US and New Zealand.

New Zealand is a small nation of less than five million people. It's a
competitive advantage to be able to offer greater and more nuanced
accomodation. Anything New Zealand can test at a smaller scale and prove out,
that larger countries can then learn from and adopt, is a win all around.

The government system of New Zealand is radically smaller and you can
interface far more directly and easily with it accordingly. Their government
is ~1/90th the size of the US Federal Government + States. For something like
Kitty Hawk, it makes a lot of sense to prove the concept first before engaging
a bureacracy the size of the US Govt + States (California in this case). If a
country like New Zealand does things right, that will always be the case no
matter how hard the US tries.

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WhompingWindows
While the regulatory, political, and economic factors are useful for a budding
company, I also think about the geography of New Zealand. It has two main
islands and an estimated 600 islands total. It's also long/narrow with
mountains and impassable terrain in many central locales. I can't help but
feel a passenger drone with 60 miles of range could save a significant amount
of time for passengers, whether that's avoiding a ferry or avoiding impassable
(for a car or boat) terrain. One could also see these services being used in
lieu of helicopters for transferring sick hospitalized patients, transferring
high-priority payloads, and so forth. Really interesting to see what use-cases
this tech will cater to, I'm hoping not just recreational uses for the
wealthy.

~~~
lazerpants
Add to that the low population density that makes potential crashes far less
dangerous to people on the ground.

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djsumdog
I think it's interesting this flying taxi would never be deployable in the
nation's capitol. Wellington is literally the windiest city in the world. On
nights when the windows rumble, residents tend to ask "Was that the wind, or
an earthquake?" (they get quite a lot of both).

I'm sure these would do fine in Auckland or Christchurch, but they'd be
grounded most of the year in Wellington. For people who are interested, look
up videos of pilots landing in Wellington on high wind days. My airlines
require separate training programs for that airport.

~~~
aunty_helen
Christchurch also gets very bad trade winds from the North West, the
difference being the ample flat land they have allows for a runway to
accomodate this. Spring/Summer seasons see a fair amount of use of the N/W
runway at Christchurch international.

Wellington is just a badly placed airport.

Just as an FYI, going off the pictures from their website I'd place the test
flights ~20km from Methven from the scenery in the background.

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carbonatedmilk
Gosh darn it Orville, I told you we needed a section 333 exemption with a part
61 pilot rating, not a Part 107 waiver!

Maybe the drone guys should just start strapping cannons to the wings, then
they'd be classed as assault rifles and there'd be no regulation at all.

~~~
icelancer
>> then they'd be classed as assault rifles and there'd be no regulation at
all.

I really don't understand people that say this. Have you ever tried to buy an
actual "assault" rifle, meaning a select-fire battle-ready rifle?

Even for semiautomatic rifles, the regulations are quite long. Maybe no one
should own an AR-15 (though I doubt banning specifically the AR-15 would do
anything since its not even the most effective gun for what people illegally
and terribly use it for, people just happen to do it because its popular and
in Call of Duty), but to call it "no regulation" is just silly.

~~~
alistairSH
Yeah, the OP conflated assault rifle with assault weapon (the first being
select fire, the second being semi-auto).

That said, the regulations for purchasing a plain-old semi-auto rifle are not
a particularly high hurdle. In my state (VA), you walk into store, point at
gun, hand over 2 ID and a credit card, fill out a background check, and wait a
few minutes for the NICS check to complete, then walk out with the gun. If you
buy the gun from a private party, you get to skip the ID and NICS portion -
just hand over cash and walk away with gun.

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jaclaz
If I may this strikes me as "odd":

>Nobody wants to wake up to an autonomous vehicle crashing through their roof,
but it's possible to prevent that without driving companies overseas.
Requiring passenger services to secure a hefty amount of insurance is one
approach—strict regulations would exist, but would be drafted by insurers.

Unless I am missing something, that would not avoid the drone/whatever to
crash through one's roof, maybe the insurance will add a further layer of
safety precautions, and the damages would be covered but initially doing
flying tests and testing service where there are less roofs/people seems to me
like a very good idea.

~~~
alistairSH
The implication is required insurance forces drone operators to be careful
where/when they deploy their drones, for fear of increased premiums/dropped
coverage.

Similar to automotive safety features. Extra air-bags or ABS systems reduce
accident, lowering premiums, driving demand for those features.

~~~
jaclaz
>The implication is required insurance forces drone operators to be careful
where/when they deploy their drones, for fear of increased premiums/dropped
coverage. >Similar to automotive safety features. Extra air-bags or ABS
systems reduce accident, lowering premiums, driving demand for those features.

Sure, I understand that, but it's not the same thing.

An extra air bag still doesn't prevent at all the crash (it may minimize
fatalities and reduce injuries of the people inside the car).

An ABS system may - in some cases - i.e. as an example on slippery roads,
prevent incidents.

If a car swerves and hits a cyclist the airbags and ABS won't do anything (for
the cyclist), and having a separate, protected cycle lanes (not allowing cars
were cyclists are) or not allowing cyclists on trafficked high speed roads
seems to me anyway a good idea.

An insurance - as said - may increase safety requirements, and each added
safety requirement may (or may not) contribute to less crashes, but it's not
like it will directly prevent incidents, that is what sounded "odd" to me.

~~~
mbrameld
> An insurance - as said - may increase safety requirements, and each added
> safety requirement may (or may not) contribute to less crashes, but it's not
> like it will directly prevent incidents, that is what sounded "odd" to me.

Did the article say insurance would directly prevent crashes? That's not the
way I read it. I read it as one approach to reducing the likelihood of crashes
is to require hefty insurance coverage, which shouldn't sound "odd" to you at
all unless you misread it.

~~~
jaclaz
That's exactly what I found "odd", the sentence says:

"Nobody wants to wake up to an autonomous vehicle crashing through their roof,
but it's possible to prevent that ..."

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keithnz
well, makes sense, we were the first to fly....

[http://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargrave/pearse1.html](http://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargrave/pearse1.html)

~~~
adventured
There's essentially zero strong evidence for the timeline actually being
correct. That has always been the problem with Pearse. Nothing was recorded,
and there were no observers.

Further, Pearse admits he was not the first to achieve flight.

"In two letters, published in 1915 and 1928, the inventor writes of February
or March 1904 as the time when he ‘set out to solve the problem of aerial
navigation’. He also states that he did not achieve proper flight and did not
beat the American brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright, who flew on 17 December
1903."

[https://nzhistory.govt.nz/culture/richard-
pearse](https://nzhistory.govt.nz/culture/richard-pearse)

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OliverJones
Electricity costs probably are no factor in test location choice. It looks
like each kWh of electricity costs about NZ$0.29, which is US$0.21.

But, I wonder what the energy cost / carbon footprint is for such flying
devices?

Risk management has to be part of the choice of test location. The US is
lawsuit-happy compared to other jurisdictions. And, the sponsor of this
project has what lawyers like to call "deep pockets."

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bayesian_horse
That's my main issue with "drones will solve everything". Basically the things
still can crash on your head. The flying taxi is even worse, being able to
wipe out a small building when falling from very high.

The type of aircraft - essentially an electrical multicopter - is so new, that
you would have to fear some failures in testing.

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lancewiggs
Testing advanced UAVs and services? Some locals are setting up an area in the
far north for wide open drone testing, including flying well out of line of
site, challenging terrain and weather/wind.

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nickpp
It makes sense: every time you tax or regulate something - you get less of
that. Every time you sponsor/deregulate something - you get more of it.

Applies to innovation too, and to California.

~~~
CPLX
Indeed. This is easily proven by comparing Colorado, which has extensive
regulation of ski resorts, with Bermuda, which doesn't have any.

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jlebrech
wouldn't the country's scenery (elevation etc) help with the demand, it's also
slightly horseshoe shaped and narrow, so could accommodate flying transport to
the sides, and it being narrow means you can't have much road traffic.

there's a bit of a bottleneck getting from the south island to the north
island.

but maybe i've underestimated the size of the country.

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7952
Does anyone know how they are going to maintain seperation from other
aircraft?

~~~
ekianjo
Not flying at the same altitude?

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rplnt
Slightly offtopic, but once again, the "American/English" style of title makes
it almost incomprehensible.

How is it in any way better than this?

> Why is Kitty Hawk's flying taxi taking off in New Zealand instead of
> California?

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samb1729
I currently see this title:

> Why Is Kitty Hawk's Flying Taxi Taking Off in New Zealand Instead of
> California?

What was it before?

~~~
dingo_bat
I think they are complaining about the capitalization.

~~~
rplnt
Yes, there's a name (Kitty Hawk) comprised of common words (Kitty, Hawk). If
you don't know the name, you can't pick it out because every word is
capitalized. It's stupid design.

