I’m still not convinced that it’s going to be a good idea to have a lot of stuff whizzing thru the air, over people, over homes, cars, schools, etc.
But hey, if it does work out, a big pat on the back to all the people who made a little extra money delivering packages for Amazon recently: you helped finance this, and soon they won’t need your services anymore.
Amazon on Monday received approval from the Federal Aviation Administration to operate its fleet of Prime Air delivery drones. The approval will give Amazon broad privileges to “safely and efficiently deliver packages to customers,” the FAA said. Amazon joins UPS and Alphabet-owned Wing, who previously won FAA approval for their drone delivery operations.
As the spring planting season arrives in College Station, Texas, certified master gardener Mark Smith is thrilled that peace is in the air. This time last year, a loud buzzing noise began disrupting Smith’s morning routine of checking on the peppers, tomatoes, herbs, and shrubs growing in his backyard. Several times an hour, an Amazon Prime Air delivery drone would noisily emerge about 800 feet away, just past a line of trees behind Smith’s home. His neighbors began calling the fleet flying chainsaws. Smith, a retired civil engineer, preferred a different comparison: “It was like your neighbor runs their leaf blower all day long,” he says. “It was just incessant.”
You may remember that a polite autonomous robot was travelling the world a few years ago. When it got to Philly, somebody destroyed it. There was no motive. I imagine drones carrying packages that could be valuable will not last long.
hitchBOT was on the ground, & could not move on it’s own, & was therefore easily susceptible to vandalism. Drones would be in the air, except for the couple of seconds they’re landing to make a delivery.
I have much greater concerns over power lines to a house or tree limbs, especially in winter when they are leafless & it’s dark early, or early morning or more likely late afternoon when the sun is low on the horizon. Ever driven into a late affternoon sun? You can have trouble seeing overpasses in front of you because it’s so bright, let alone a thin wire/line/branch. Don’t forget kids in the backyard playing ball/frisbee/flying a kite.
I also doubt one of their drones could make my covered porch with it’s standard-width cement sidewalk like walkway & high bushes. Where are they going to leave any package I might happen to order from them, in the yard, on a rainy day?
Amazon wants to grow its Prime Air delivery drone service sixfold to reach nearly 500 cities and towns across the United States by the end of 2026. The planned expansions from Amazon and its rivals could make the convenience of delivery drone services available to tens of millions more people in the coming months—but will also test more communities’ tolerance for increased noise from daily drone flights…
The Amazon Prime Air expansion comes as competitor Walmart has teamed up with the companies Wing and Zipline to scale up its own delivery drone service. Walmart recently celebrated the milestone of surpassing 1 million drone deliveries after operating from 66 stores across four states, and is looking to expand that service footprint to more than 270 Walmart stores by 2027…
Even DoorDash is looking to build its own in-house delivery drone program.
I saw a different article but I don’t see anything that the FAA has changed anything to allow these BVLOS flights. Especially depending upon drone design they could pose a significant threat to certain manned aircraft - ultralights, hot-air balloons, & powered parachutes, even skydivers.
How would they even work, for anyone except single home dwellers in suburbia? Do they just drop their packages anywhere within a certain range of the address and you have to go hunt for it?
I recall a TV item some while ago where a drone made a delivery by hovering and winching the parcel down onto someone’s lawn. Given the reality of UK housing (square metres rather than acres) this seemed to me to be an unlikely prospect. There was also a fairly small load allowance.
We also see delivery robots from time to time. This also looks like a gimmick that will never really work. When I order something, I want it delivered to my door, not to the street outside. Ignoring the likelihood of the local teenagers having fun with it.
There will be some places in some countries where very urgent deliveries (medical supplies?) might usefully be made this way, but I suspect that extra cost might be involved. I suspect that my local Amazon driver has nothing to fear from this.
