Ampyx’s high-velocity high-mass architecture must achieve < 1 major mishap per 100khrs to approach minimal aviation safety insurability standards. Its not clear what Ampyx data Rod is basing his conclusions on. If Ampyx made its Flight Logs public, there would likely not be very many hours between crashes, and no hours logged operating the AP3 from a catapult perch. All that “safety” is pure speculative marketing.
Kitepower is comparably exposed. Its Mishap Report and Fault Modes Analysis do not meet best-practice. The NASA Helios Mishap Report is the gold-standard, and Wubbo embodied NASA excellence while he lived. Sadly, the TUD venture circle spin-offs are poor AWES safety design models, from single-line to com-link dependence, and many known failure modes ignored.
Kitepower is currently withholding crash data on where its UHMWPE tether dragged and ended up, especially whether it draped across Valkenburg traffic and pedestrians. The safety reporting offered is very incomplete, and reflects venture capitalist self-interest more than sound aviation sector precedent.