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Comment by alexdong | Hacker News Reader

There are many remote areas in the South Island that are hard to get to. For example, West coast and particular the Haast area, wasn’t connected to the rest of the country until late 1980s. That is, 130 years after Western people started colonisation here.

Previously the only way to get to these remote areas is via light aircraft and helicopters. “Flying doctor” and nurses weren’t uncommon. (Our midwife used to fly in, deliver a baby and fly back home for tea.)

Public transportation, especially long distance ones, are poor. (Comparing to Switzerland and China.) Dunedin is only 100 miles away from Queenstown but it usually takes us 4:30 to 5:00 to get there by car.

So if you see this news from these perspectives, you’ll see why it’s so cool and why the downsides aren’t that bad at all.

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So, you think those vehicles would be restricted to the country side? I find that very hard to believe. Especially suburban areas will be doomed by broad adaption of this kind of technology.

And while you may now see the advantage in remote areas, do not forget that when you get faster out you get in faster and the amount of people (and hence general noise) will increase so much. If a commute of one hour is acceptable for most people, its just the range those people live in that increases. And even if traffic is not that dense, some 100 dB noise every 2 minutes can be as annoying as a busy street nearby.

I always have the feeling that people always just look what they could do if they had this kind of technology and not what other people might do with it.

Noise cancellation tech will catch up too.

tech isnt a magic wand that can be waved to solve any conceivable problem.

Id love to see the power usage of noise cancelling out a single helicopter for a single person. That's ignoring how horrible life could be for the person sitting next to them.

At some point you have to accept the laws of physics.

I’m curious, if a local community doesn’t want to adopt a technology, don’t you think they should regulate it locally, instead of fussing about the fact that it may work fine for a different community? If a city doesn’t want flying taxis I don’t see why they can’t just pass an ordinance banning them.

If flying taxis work great for New Zealand’s use cause, are you really opposed to developing it because it won’t work in your country? What an odd way to think about technology.

The case that was being made is that the poster themselves wouldn't like the outcome they wish for because people in general have a tendency to under imagine others' behavior with a new tech, over their own benefits.

Some things don't work as well with a federated model of rules, and one of the things that's an especially poor match for that is comprehensive transportation systems, sort of by definition.

These planes are designed to pilot themselves. When the passenger enters a destination, it should query a database of areas where it is permitted to fly and pick the most appropriate route given the constraints.

In flight these things are going to be less noticeable at ground level than a car. If nothing else FAA regulations limit how close you can fly near houses. Yea, you could have people taking off near you but that's a 2x per day thing not every 2 minutes.

In terms of cities the simple solution is to prevent these from landing outside of designated areas.

Spent a day in Franz Joseph this Christmas. Lovely, hip little town, but constant buzzing of helicopters was annoying.

Electricity would certainly make them at least little bit quieter.

How so? The only difference is prop size, you seldom hear the motors of helicopters. Only the blade chop.

They only use vertical takeoff to get up to speed or when landing. In flight it's just as loud as a normal single engine aircraft which are generally quieter than a car at ground level.

Yeah, but that's exactly when the noise is most annoying for everyone else.

It has a range of 62 miles. It's not going to work for "hard to reach" places or long distances.

Right now it has a range of 62 miles. That's obviously just a starting point.

100 kilometre range, even 50k in and 50k out, has the potential to make a lot of hard to reach places not.

Especially if it's VTOL and rechargeable from a wall socket.

We have a race in NZ called the Coast to Coast - you start with a foot in the Tasman Sea and finish with a foot in the Pacific Ocean. It can be either done in one day (called the Longest Day) or two days, and comprises cycling, a mountain run across the Main Divide, then more cycling, then kayaking, then cycling again.

But the fact that it can be done in one day should give you a hint as to the breadth of the South Island of NZ. Something like this would especially benefit our isolated West Coast, or if it can safely land in mountainous areas would be of great use in hunting.

But the fact that it can be done in one day should give you a hint as to the breadth of the South Island of NZ.

Here in the UK we have the Coast to Coast walk[1]. It's 192 miles. The record is 39 hours and a bit, so just under two days. That shouldn't give you any hint at all that the country is that narrow everywhere though, just as the race in NZ doesn't.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coast_to_Coast_Walk

Agree with the premise of all that you say.

Perhaps I'm nitpicking but its worth noting that Haast Pass was opened in '65 and Dunedin to Queenstown takes 3.5 hrs without breaking the speed limit.

But yeah, flying cars would be a boon for many parts of Nuw Zulund

I think these would be great for many applications. I'd love to own one and fly it around. But, like I said, the problem is with urban areas. Imagine literally a million of them flying at the same time during rush hour in the LA basin or around the Bay Area. That is something a bit different than flying around remote areas in the Outback, Alaska, the Yukon, or the South Island.

Current rules on helicopters are OK, since they are very expensive to purchase and operate, but drop those an order of magnitude and I don't think that will be the case.

Doesn't sound like the big, attractive market to serve, though. What's the population of that area?

Maybe there’s some benefit to encouraging people to concentrate in urban areas. The US specifically is already ruined by urban sprawl. Making long commutes easier may just threaten the last remnant of pristine nature remaining.

Apart from ecological concerns, there are also social trade-offs: flying cars may allow you to get to work. But they do not facilitate the social interaction that comes from strolling down Main Street, having a coffee, and interacting with people you may meet.

> Dunedin is only 100 miles away from Queenstown but it usually takes us 4:30 to 5:00 to get there by car.

So, the simplest solution would appear to be some road improvements, rather than noise pollution for the people who enjoy the quiet enjoyment of rural areas

Drilling tunnels into the Kiwi equivalent of the Alps to service communities that are mostly in the range of hundreds to thousands of people is neither simple nor financially feasible.

Why is there any assumption that those people _want_ easier access to and from their communities?

GGGP (alexdong) lives there and apparently wants easier access to doctors, nurses, and midwives.

That's a sample size of one, but I suspect at least a few other people will agree if they're ever in need of medical care. People are fickle; they say they want quiet when tourists are rummaging around, but don't even care about a helicopter landing in their backyard when there's a doctor on board.

I've done that drive and I've driven in the Alps, that road is mainly encompassed by large hills rather than mountains,

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