New Zealand: Tāwhaki National Aerospace Centre Provides Advancement for Country’s Aviation

New Zealand (NZ) has bol­stered its posi­tion in the world’s aero­space indus­try with the open­ing of the Tāwha­ki Nation­al Aero­space Cen­tre along­side a new run­way at Kaitorete, south island, reports a press release.The new infra­struc­ture cou­pled with tech­ni­cal sup­port will bol­ster NZ’s devel­op­ing aero­space sec­tor.

Both domes­tic and inter­na­tion­al com­pa­nies are already test­ing their lat­est tech­nolo­gies there, a short 50-minute dri­ve from Christchurch, includ­ing U.S‑based Wisk Aero who recent­ly con­duct­ed its world-first air­space inte­gra­tion test flights for an autonomous air­craft.

Domes­tic com­pa­nies like Dawn Aero­space and Kea Aero­space will now be able to con­duct impor­tant flight tri­als from the site. 

The release explains, “This new one kilo­me­tre run­way and planned hangar facil­i­ties were fund­ed by a USD5.4 mil­lion grant from the New Zealand Government’s Region­al Strate­gic Part­ner­ship Fund, admin­is­tered by Kānoa. This is fore­cast to enable aero­space and tech sec­tor growth that deliv­ers over 1,300 high val­ue, high wage jobs, and up to USD2.4 bil­lion in eco­nom­ic ben­e­fits over the next 10 years.”

David Perenara‑O’Connell Speak­ing at the Open­ing Cer­e­mo­ny (Cred­it: Dean Macken­zie)

Tāwha­ki Board Mem­ber, David Perenara‑O’Connell, com­ment­ed, “We’re grate­ful for the sup­port of our gov­ern­ment, local author­i­ties, reg­u­la­tors, aero­space part­ners, research and sci­ence com­mu­ni­ties and sup­pli­ers who share our vision of a world-lead­ing hub for inno­va­tion and explo­ration.”

He con­tin­ued, “We believe this mis­sion is unique. The way in which we weave togeth­er mātau­ran­ga Māori (indige­nous knowl­edge) with cut­ting-edge inno­va­tion in aero­space and envi­ron­men­tal reju­ve­na­tion, marks a new era in sus­tain­able land use.”

Tāwha­ki Chief Exec­u­tive, Lin­da Fal­wass­er, added, “New Zealand and the world will ben­e­fit from the dis­cov­er­ies here, with oper­a­tors devel­op­ing new meth­ods and tech­nolo­gies for envi­ron­men­tal mon­i­tor­ing, weath­er and dis­as­ter fore­cast­ing, pre­ci­sion agri­cul­ture, sus­tain­able space trans­port and beyond.”

For more infor­ma­tion

https://tawhaki.co.nz/

(Top Image: Wisk Aero Test­ing at Tāwhaki/Credit: Dean Macken­zie)

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