[wthalheimer]

Depends on the price. All electric means we operate for about half the cost of an aircraft (and about 1/10th of a helicopter). Combine that with similar speeds to aircraft, convenience of not having to use an airport, and zero emissions - and the use case becomes very attractive.

We have some prospective customers eyeing Catalina, but that's actually on the short end of our range at ~25 miles vs our 180 mile max.

Shuttle service to SD and SB is very much in the cards - and we can do it with existing battery tech!

[schoen]

If that became popular enough, would you eventually need something akin to air traffic control for those waterways? I'm not sure existing water navigation rules and protocols would be a good match for these gliders, because they might not be operated by experienced sailors, because their altitude is also a potential collision-avoidance factor, but most of all because of their speed.

I imagine other waterway users being frightened, but also having enough demand for coastal transportation in Southern California, specifically because of the speed, that you end up potentially operating dozens of these at a time in the same region.

(It looks like you answered part of that in a different part of the comments, but I'm still curious about the big picture.)

[wbl]

This is not much faster than existing high speed cats and way more visible to us sailors. It won't be a problem: they'll dodge us, and use 16 if they have to.