John Holt: Tāwhaki executive director on permanent airspace for Aerospace centre

Hopes Canterbury's aerospace sector will continue going from strength to strength, with a permanent test flight space confirmed at Tawhaki. 

The National Aerospace centre, west of Banks Peninsula, can now hold tests without continual re-permits. 

Tāwhaki executive director John Holt told Heather du Plessis-Allan this helps remove red tape and paperwork, adding that it's difficult in the early construction stages, to find a safe aircraft testing place.

The sector now aims to boost its economic value from 250 million in 2023, to one billion dollars a year.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
And what's being described as a pretty big move, the
National Aerospace Center in Canterbury has been given permanent airspace
for test flights. Now, the center's already been used to
test advanced aviation and space technology, so drones and space
planes and stuff like that. John Holt is the executive
director of the National Airspace Aerospace Center and is with us. Now, Hey, John,
how are you?

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Well?

Speaker 1 (00:20):
Thank you? How helpful is it?

Speaker 3 (00:22):
Well? Look, it's really great. But maybe firstly, our most
common name is Tarfucky because we're a joint venture between
the EWI and the New Zealand government. Cool, and this
has been a joint effort to get the space above
KAI three test but where we're physically located to basically
give us a global advantage in building a new vertical

(00:43):
in our economy, which is all about testing, refining, and
researching aerospace probably most commonly defined at the moment as
these dasher drones.

Speaker 1 (00:53):
So does this basically just take the paperwork out of it?

Speaker 3 (00:57):
That's right. So it's really difficult when you're in the
early stages of creating an aircraft to find places where
you can operate safely and and sort of be comfortably
not that far away from the public, but making them
feel that they're safe with some airspace specifically designed for
them to stay with them.

Speaker 1 (01:15):
So who is using the Aerospace Center.

Speaker 3 (01:18):
We've got a range of users and probably the most
exciting one is well, I mean, they will have their
own positives, but Dorn Aerospace has certainly received a lot
of publicity recently, so they are the first aircraft since
the Concord in a private context to actually break the
sound barrier.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
Do you imagine that you will get more business as
a result of this?

Speaker 3 (01:40):
Oh? Absolutely, It's incredibly important that we have something so
close to facilities like christ Church and the airport and
Littleton Port for these test companies to get their gear in.
But regulation is one of the biggest barriers for these
new aircraft types.

Speaker 1 (01:57):
Okay, now do you do you have to be able
to expand what you're doing here. Is it possible that
you could actually take over more space?

Speaker 3 (02:05):
Yes, well, look at the whole idea is to have
these facilities readily available in the right places. So this
is one of well, this is the first for New
Zealand and it includes the land plus the airspace, but
certainly not off the cards that there'll be others around
the country.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
Okay, John, thank you very much, good luck te talk
order or myhora. John Holt, executive director of the tar
Fucky National Aerospace Center.

Speaker 4 (02:35):
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