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Drone Delivery

Ron Hervey

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Please forgive me if this is the wrong section. An article today on USA Today said that Walgreens will soon be delivering some items by drone in Virginia soon. I have read in the past that Amazon and Walmart are also working to develop drone delivery. Wouldn't they have to fly by the same rules that 107 pilots fly by? What about the LOS issue? Is there a commercial level above 107? Will these drones be piloted by helicopter/airplane licensed pilots?
 
Please forgive me if this is the wrong section. An article today on USA Today said that Walgreens will soon be delivering some items by drone in Virginia soon. I have read in the past that Amazon and Walmart are also working to develop drone delivery. Wouldn't they have to fly by the same rules that 107 pilots fly by? What about the LOS issue? Is there a commercial level above 107? Will these drones be piloted by helicopter/airplane licensed pilots?
Deliveries will not be made under 107.

 
At one time awhile ago, I remember reading that the Amazon drones were to be piloted by airman certified people who flew planes.
Currently, I can have my stuff left in my garage if I give them access via my Chamberland garage door opener and myQ account.
I foresee the dropoff as someone giving them permission and gets a "smart" home landing pad set in an obstacle free environment, probably in the back yard away from prying eyes.
If there were enough customer landing pads, then there could be many "safe" zones for emergency landings or maintenance. If the pad had wireless charging with wifi access, the communication loop/verification process would be a closed loop system. These pads could even make the flights autonomous.
I do like the multiple rotors for redundancy.
Current FAA rules don't allow this service, but that's why there are lobbyists.

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While I like the idea of drone deliveries, the complications of a large scale drone delivery system seem enormous and at best, and a scaled system far distant into the future.

Current estimates show Amazon deliver 1.6 million packages a day. A regular delivery van can take a few hundred package per day; Amazon alone has 20,000 delivery vehicles and yet most shipments are made with non-Amazon vehicles.

While far more expensive than a commercial class drone, the economic concept of one drone with one package with something like one delivery per hour means you'd have to have many thousands of drones to augment the delivery system currently in place. Delivery drivers make stops every three to five minutes on average.

Then we get to pilots- there's a perennial shortage of Amazon delivery drivers; the number of folks who could safely and quickly pilot a commercial class drone is a tiny fraction of that number.

Add to that the realities of millions of different flight paths, obstacles, landing places, heavy weather, governmental restrictions, and we're probably closer to flying cars than Amazon delivering a significant number of its packages by drone.

Your thoughts?
 
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