Are you interested in delivering food and drinks with your drone for cash?

[ianannase]

Zing is an application I am working on that will be like the "Uber of Drones". Drone pilots will make a fixed amount for each delivery they make from places like Starbucks, Jimmy Johns, and Chipotle using their Mavic Pro drones. If you are interested please apply to join the drone pilot fleet at zingdrones.com

 

[Just_nick]

No.

 

[macoman]

How exactly this is going to work? The Mavic pro is not a drone like the inspire that can carry heavy stuff.

 

[Thwyllo]

Is this a joke?

 

[Thwyllo]

Never mind the weight...can you imagine your $3000 drone arriving at a crackhouse in the hood with a pizza on board? You'd only be doing the one trip I'm thinking. And one-way at that.....

 

[ianannase]

The Mavic Pro can carry around 900 grams of weight. The average meal weighs about 450-600 grams. This limit will be set in the cart when a user orders food or drinks.

Each of the users will be verified with their ID and payment information before the flight, and will be held responsible for anything that happens when the drone drops off the items at the user locations.

 

[seanmclean]

He makes good jokes.

 

[Asfwt]

The Mavic Pro can carry around 900 grams of weight. The average meal weighs about 450-600 grams. This limit will be set in the cart when a user orders food or drinks.

Each of the users will be verified with their ID and payment information before the flight, and will be held responsible for anything that happens when the drone drops off the items at the user locations.

 

[microlinux]

I'll take a Miller Lite.

 

[Asfwt]

How are you going to make delivery’s to different locations and maintain LOS? Which you need to be in order to complie with FAA rules

 

[ianannase]

How are you going to make delivery’s to different locations and maintain LOS? Which you need to be in order to complie with FAA rules

I believe the current rules regarding LOS will not be in place for much longer. Places like San Diego have already been approved to test drone deliveries for food outside of line-of-sight. Source

 

[SaMavic]

A 16oz drink weighs almost 500 grams, that's not even including the food. Plus the Mavic gets wind velocity warnings even when a fly farts. I don't think this is feasible.

 

[Mossiback]

You might as well wait for Amazon to work out all the legal details for drone deliveries. As for:

...Each of the users ... will be held responsible for anything that happens when the drone drops off the items at the user locations.

Good luck with that. A lot can go wrong before and after delivery that you can't hold the "user" responsible for. The liability insurance alone is going to eat a lot of the profits from food delivery, especially after the rates go up after a few crashes.

 

[ianannase]

A 16oz drink weighs almost 500 grams, that's not even including the food. Plus the Mavic gets wind velocity warnings even when a fly farts. I don't think this is feasible.

There will be restrictions initially when you are checking out so you do not go over a safe limit. This drone may have to take either food or drinks but not both.

You might as well wait for Amazon to work out all the legal details for drone deliveries.

Yes, Uber and Amazon will probably pave the way legally for these types of drone deliveries while Zing is in development.

The liability insurance alone is going to eat a lot of the profits from food delivery, especially after the rates go up after a few crashes.

We will factor in the cost of the liability insurance to the fixed cost of each delivery. We have not gotten this far yet but this will definitely be a hurdle to overcome.

 

[JMF]

Nah, this idea just won't FLY....

 

[ianannase]

Nah, this idea just won't FLY....

I like the pun, what are your reasons?

 

[microlinux]

I believe the current rules regarding LOS will not be in place for much longer. Places like San Diego have already been approved to test drone deliveries for food outside of line-of-sight. Source

The transition from testing to "legal" is a long road. The FAA is not exactly known for speedy action . . . I suspect it would be highly restrictive if BVLOS comes to fruition. I have hard time envisioning the FAA permitting Joe Blow with a 107 to do deliveries with his toy drone (that's ultimately what this class of drones is). At this point it doesn't even seem you know what the costs of doing business are, I think you're jumping way ahead in the process. The boring stuff is frequently the most important, there is no point to a business if you can't make money - which sounds very dubious in such a piecemeal fashion.

 

[Thwyllo]

Well I'm assuming you're paying $15-20 per delivery? Any less and you won't be covering wear and tear, battery recharging (probably one per delivery), depreciation, public liability insurance and profit for the owner to name but a few. Then there's your margin on top. So $25 to deliver a 75c tin of soda...

I wouldn't normally be disparaging about a new business venture but this is probably the most ill-conceived, doomed-to-failure idea I've heard in a long time. Good luck with it but it's going nowhere. Maybe you should do a Ross Perot and look at using your app to sell downtime on Amazon drones if they ever get going.

 

[ianannase]

Joe Blow with a 107 to do deliveries with his toy drone

These drones are perfectly capable of performing the deliveries whether they are considered toys or not. When drone deliveries inevitably come in a few years through major players like Amazon, I would assume there would be some kind of test in place by the FAA for these employees. If Joe Blow could pass this test, he would be just as qualified to perform the delivery.

 

[ianannase]

I wouldn't normally be disparaging about a new business venture but this is probably the most ill-conceived, doomed-to-failure idea I've heard in a long time. Good luck with it but it's going nowhere

I am saving this in my notes. These type of comments are what keep me going.