https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/12/amazon-begins-drone-deliveries-in-california-and-texas/ "Amazon has begun delivering orders by drone. Amazon Prime Air is now operating in Lockeford, Calif. and College Station, Texas ... " Latest update: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy...0-miles-in-30-minutes/?itm_source=parsely-api From the article ...
In the article; "The drone will fly to the designated delivery location, descend to the customer's backyard, and hover at a safe height," Amazon said. "It will then safely release the package and rise back up to altitude." How soon before the first lawsuit about Amazon dropping a package on an unsuspecting customer? How long before I can get a pizza delivered by a drone that's still hot and fresh and only slightly mangled after an 8' drop into the yard ...
I’ll believe this when I see it for myself. Even then I won’t believe it’s anything but a publicity stunt.
I'm wondering how well these drones would handle a 1500 watt linear driving a signal through an 11 element Yagi pointed at them ...
Seems this first attempt is targeting a ten mile, five pound limit. Wonder if they will deliver to a FSDO ...
I foresee numerous 5lb packages being dropped onto family pets, children, automobiles, piles of pet poop, ant hills, and into swimming pools. Can’t wait for the YouTube videos.
To the extent its GPS is still receiving, pretty well. They have a preprogrammed home mode in the case of lost comms. Now if you are able to jam its GPS, it would be like hitting a fly with a direct shot of Raid.
There's a European operation that runs a drone pick-up and deliver service for medical lab samples from several locations relatively close to each other. Last I looked into it (a few years back) it was up and running OK. But they use fixed routes that are regularly surveyed for changes. Some impetus to use it in "outback" areas for the same purpose, plus other critical deliveries.
I wonder when airplanes first started to become available how many farmers had the attitude of “if one of them flying machines comes over my land it’ll get some bird shot!” I’m willing to bet it wasn’t an uncommon attitude…
Wing, formerly a Google X bet, has been doing drone deliveries in various parts of the world for some time now. Zipline as well, IIRC. While it may not be the answer to everyone's supply chain issues it definitely has its uses. Nauga, who wonders if people fear technology or just change
So ... stupid questions: How low are drones allowed to fly over a residence? Does a property owner have any control over the airspace above his property or home? I have read various places stating that property owners have 365' of airspace above their property that they control but I haven't found any legal precedence for that statement. How's this for an answer? https://aviation.uslegal.com/ownership-of-airspace-over-property/
It drops the load from like 14 feet. Size limited and only drops in specific areas. Seems like a gimmick to me. And I’m definitely keeping it if I bag one.
Yep, you crash a drone, airplane, frisbee, or golf ball in my back yard its mine. Unless you care to scale my pointy fence posts and brave my dogs for it. Kites too. I will cut your kite string. Mark, Who is mostly joking
Simple. They asked. https://www.federalregister.gov/doc...summary-of-petition-received-amazon-prime-air
But did they get it? I found this public comment to be particularly good, not that it will impact the FAA decision making process any.
Last winter, a large tree had fallen across my driveway. While I was working to move some of the debris, I heard a whining sound..a pretty large drone was hovering about 20 feet above me. I looked up, gave it the "you are number one sign " and it flew away. It was about 2 feet in diameter. I live less than 2 miles from an airport.
like I said, a publicity stunt. Someone has to drive within visual range of the delivery site. Hmmm, why not just give them the package?
Apparently, you'd prefer that they don't see observe how their autonomous UAV handles both known and unexpected problems at the delivery site and "wave it off" if needed.
My point ? Let's see..invasion of privacy, and drones flying on a final approach path of an airport...nothing important.
