DHL Pulling Its Parcelcopter Drone, Ceasing Drone Development! Amazon following suit?

[frank candor]

YAY!

 

[CactusJackSlade]

There are perfectly good reasons relating to the safety of manned aviation to drive RID, so it would be rather disappointing if the major driver turned out to be these other industries. I'm always a bit suspicious of "a guy I talked to", but how solid do you rate that source?

As for the delivery industry - I never understood how they thought that would work. Autonomous heavy-lift drones flying around residential neighborhoods trying to deliver parcels? What could possibly go wrong?

Well the guy I talked to was an FAA staff member at CES specifically there to answer questions about drones and upcoming regulations etc.

 

[Kilrah]

Eh, a bunch of us called it back when it was announced as just being a PR stunt/way to get innovation subsidies and funding but not making any practical sense, so not surprised at all.

 

[DavidT_ NZ]

I have always thought it was a publicity stunt. Indeed they had to know what the logistics were. A typical Amazon or UPS delivery truck makes around 160 to 210 stops and delivers about 240 to 330 individual packages a day, this is using one person, one truck in just about any weather condition.

To do that same work, imagine the numbers of people involved to coordinate. load, fly and maintain the 'fleet' of drones they would need - just to match one truck and one driver, then multiply that by hundreds of thousands of such trucks running across the country every day.

It was never going to happen in mass, or even for a small portion of what these companies deliver in a day. It was simply to promote that these companies are 'forward thinking' industry-leading types. I believe there could be uses for drone deliveries on a small scale in some areas but DHL and Amazon are in the business of moving millions of tons of commerce every day, reliably and economically, and drones will never be able to provide that capability.

Commercial deliveries by drones always looked doubtful simply on the basis of risk. Having a drone failure in flight and dropping anything substantial on to an unsuspecting person causing serious injury or death would be an unjustifiable risk to a company. However, in controlled environments, drones are apparently being trialled to move medical packages around and between hospital locations. And as a rapid system of getting emergency comms equipment, medical or food and water supplies to people trapped, for example in burning or collapsed buildings or areas isolated by civil defence - fires, floods, etc., - drone transportation has a huge amount of potential. With the advent of drones capable of carrying feeder lines, the prospect of connecting buildings with an escape rope might also help with evacuations that would otherwise not be possible. Just not for delivering pizzas ….. ?

 

[Ron Staats]

Yes, but for others it is coming. The store Kruger has gotten permission to fly within a mile radius and deliver packages up to five pounds.
"Drone Express will commence test flights this week near the Kroger Marketplace in Centerville, at 1095 South Main St. The flights will be managed by licensed Drone Express pilots from an on-site trailer with additional off-site monitoring.



There will be real geographic limits to the delivery area in the service’s early stages, Beth Flippo, chief technology officer of TELEGRID, said in an interview Monday. (Drone Express is a division of TELEGRID.)

"Drone Express will not be allowed to fly beyond a drone controller’s visual line of sight until the company obtains the necessary Federal Aviation Administration certification. She declined to state an exact or even an estimated distance for that limit, but the company can, if it must, deliver packages to a Drone Express employee who can then take the package the rest of the way to a customer outside that limit."View attachment 133166

I have thought about applying there once I got my 107. I live just a few miles form that store and they are asking for people.

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

However, in controlled environments, drones are apparently being trialled to move medical packages around and between hospital locations. And as a rapid system of getting emergency comms equipment, medical or food and water supplies to people trapped, for example in burning or collapsed buildings or areas isolated by civil defence - fires, floods, etc., - drone transportation has a huge amount of potential.

Absolutely
Particularly Zipline in some African nations (and other countries yet ?), and in Switzerland / Germany Matternet (smaller drones like out quad style).
Both US companies too.

Without a doubt Ziplines longer range winged ops are going to be more successful in larger regions, larger payloads etc.
Smaller drones / payloads will have their place for urgent blood / medicines for faster remote deployment.

We have this really cool AUV challenge annually in Australia.
Well, except for 2021, cancelled due to 'you know what'

Funny enough, it's called UAV Challenge

UAV Challenge

Flying robot competitions

uavchallenge.org

 

[Alan_M]

Can’t say this is a surprise at all. The tech just isn’t ready for any sort of regular parcel delivery. Batteries especially aren’t ready for repeated heavy lifting over any distance yet. There are some very niche scenarios where drones are useful, but for mainstream delivery, not a chance.

 

[Richiebricker]

No more DHL Drones

It was all a "Pump n Dump" scheme, where ya can artificially get stock prices to rise then sell your stock. Jeff Bezos bought himself a seat at the top of Homeland Security, which is dang Krazy. Google that crap, Its unbelievable

 

[chakalakasp]

Everyone saying this is pump and dump is... kinda being silly. First off, Amazon doesn't need news of drone development to make investors toss their panties onto the stage. AWS runs half the internet, their direct to consumer shipping model is the new Sears and is eating the world, and they're building a logistics operation that is going to challenge and maybe dethrone UPS/FedEx. Second, you don't get that many big boys simultaneously developing a thing unless they see it as a Big Thing in the future. The Apple Newton was hot garbage as it was implemented, but the idea was sound and eventually became the iPhone. Same with the AR glasses Google tried to make -- they took a swing and a miss, but Facebook is furiously continuing VR development at a fiscal loss and Apple is going to take their own swing at it in the next five years (and when they do they won't miss).

Drones will be a very large industry in the future and not just for cargopants-wearing dads doing dronies of their own back yard and posting the videos on YouTube -- but for all sectors of commerce. I think what Amazon (and others) realized is that even with suitcases of campaign money lubricating the way, the government regulations are going to progress orders of magnitude slower than they need them to progress, so the idea is shelved for a later time. This is not to say that it's wrong to have those regulations develop slowly, given that fleets of 50 pound drones crisscrossing your town could pose a serious risk to life and limb both in the sky and on the ground, but when you're employing entire teams of talented, expensive people to develop a thing and the teams are sitting on their thumbs waiting for a regulatory agency to craft rules that will let you proceed, and that agency looks like it might take a half a decade to get it done... you cut your losses and let those talented people work on other things, or at least stop paying them to wait.