End of this hobby for all of us ?

[Mazdaman323lx]

Was watching Russ on 51Drones on youtube last week. He was on about Amazon getting a licence for automated drone deliveries and how legislation will eventually force hobbyist flyers from the sky to keep the low altitudes free for amazons drones. I thought , yeah not my problem in misty ole Ireland. Boy was I wrong

Airborne groceries? Tesco to trial drone deliveries

The supermarket chain is teaming up with a drone start-up to deliver groceries faster.

www.zdnet.com

Flippin supermarkets will now be delivering your loo roll or butter by drone shortly.
Big money is gonna outlaw us pilots to the back and beyonds shortly.

 

[RobertR]

I would think that this would only occur in urban areas, where recreational drone flying is (CAA) restricted anyway. In rural areas, it shouldn't be an issue.

 

[vindibona1]

I think there is a lot of water to go under that bridge before anything decisve can be determined. Will drone delivery be financially viable? Will the cost passed onto the consumer be accepted? Will the cost of equipment,and maintenance be an issue. How much time will be needed to recharge the drones and how much manpower will it take to deploy the drones properly. Will trade unions in the current political environment (arise and) squelch the project? Will the noise create local ordinances to ban them altogether. Will the fear of expanded civil espionage spawn ordinances and laws?

I don't know about you, but if I had lawnmowers buzzing about my house every 20 minutes my local trustee would get a phone call. People who already hate the nuisance of drones are going to be a whole lot more unhappy.

 

[Paul2660]

After they crash a few hundred times and get the following lawsuits I feel the fascination with such deliveries will drop considerably.

What drone will be used that can reliably fly several miles, make a pin point drop and fly back. Plus avoiding trees houses power lines etc. Unless they are using a military type drone which would offer much greater accuracy.

Paul C

 

[Scubadiver1944]

Was watching Russ on 51Drones on youtube last week. He was on about Amazon getting a licence for automated drone deliveries and how legislation will eventually force hobbyist flyers from the sky to keep the low altitudes free for amazons drones. I thought , yeah not my problem in misty ole Ireland. Boy was I wrong

Airborne groceries? Tesco to trial drone deliveries

The supermarket chain is teaming up with a drone start-up to deliver groceries faster.

www.zdnet.com

Flippin supermarkets will now be delivering your loo roll or butter by drone shortly.
Big money is gonna outlaw us pilots to the back and beyonds shortly.

I wouldn't put it past the money-grubbing so and so's.

 

[FlyoverDRN]

We have been on this hobby to know very well its limitations. As much as it could be exciting to see drones becoming of commercial use, there are too many obstacles to over come, like reliability, liability, range, weather, automation, and certainly a few more. I can't see it happening, and if so, it will be in the very far future.
Don't forget, companies love to use marketing on products that might or might not become to life.

 

[msinger]

He was on about Amazon getting a licence for automated drone deliveries and how legislation will eventually force hobbyist flyers from the sky to keep the low altitudes free for amazons drones

Is it just me or is 51Drones making videos sometimes just for the views?

 

[Phantomrain.org]

Was watching Russ on 51Drones on youtube last week. He was on about Amazon getting a licence for automated drone deliveries and how legislation will eventually force hobbyist flyers from the sky to keep the low altitudes free for amazons drones. I thought , yeah not my problem in misty ole Ireland. Boy was I wrong

Airborne groceries? Tesco to trial drone deliveries

The supermarket chain is teaming up with a drone start-up to deliver groceries faster.

www.zdnet.com

Flippin supermarkets will now be delivering your loo roll or butter by drone shortly.
Big money is gonna outlaw us pilots to the back and beyond shortly.

Most likely Amazon is going to have right of way privileges similar to how we deal with planes , trains and auto now.
They are also going to most likely have there own flight space : Im thinking 425 ft to avoid most birds and drones.

These Drones are not going to be quiet , not everyone is going to be pleased with them coming and going as the same people start to order several orders a day.
Think about all the Focus we have seen with the Haters on just us flying next door let alone landing near by.

There will be day when every one has a Amazon Heli Landing Pad , but were not there yet.
The mind set is not there and the technology is not there , whats going to happen to the fly away, bird strikes, the magnetic interference. the rock throwers, the drone thief's

I was also thinking they are going to make a 1 way trip and than have an amazon come and pick it up , that a possibility and if so
you have to be responsible for the Drone over night or a few days.

Its also just a matter of time for an Amazon drone to crash into a school bus scarring everyone , so we got that to look forward to as well a thousands more incidents like that.

So much is going to happen. But for now its all still a pipe dream , kind of like Elon Tunnel system , I dont see any tunnels at my house yet.


Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly your Drone in the Rain and Float on Water

 

[eckydrone200]

I agree completely with what you say Phantomrain. ?

 

[Otisangb]

I would think that this would only occur in urban areas, where recreational drone flying is (CAA) restricted anyway. In rural areas, it shouldn't be an issue.

From a business stand point I would have thought the drones would be used in very rural areas. Deliver a one off package that would have taken the driver out of his normal route. Plus all the liability risk of flying in a congested area. I just can't imagine drone delivery in a city like Boston one package at a time. I am not up to date on Amazon's drone plans but do not see it affecting the hobbyist anytime soon. But then again I have been wrong before.

 

[DavidBlezard]

Was watching Russ on 51Drones on youtube last week. He was on about Amazon getting a licence for automated drone deliveries and how legislation will eventually force hobbyist flyers from the sky to keep the low altitudes free for amazons drones. I thought , yeah not my problem in misty ole Ireland. Boy was I wrong

Airborne groceries? Tesco to trial drone deliveries

The supermarket chain is teaming up with a drone start-up to deliver groceries faster.

www.zdnet.com

Flippin supermarkets will now be delivering your loo roll or butter by drone shortly.
Big money is gonna outlaw us pilots to the back and beyonds shortly.

With 5G coming out, newer drones will be sending out locations and will know where other drones are in teh sky. I think it will be like driving a car and not hitting UPS/DHL or Amazon trucks. Which will be autonomous eventually.

 

[Malcx]

To counter some of the "it's a long way off" comments here about range, weather and noise, I saw this mil-spec drone announced today:

Anduril - Ghost 4 sUAS

Ghost 4 is an autonomous VTOL sUAS that operates on the Lattice AI platform. Ghost 4 is modular, man-portable, waterproof, and combines long endurance, high payload capacity, and a near-silent acoustic signature for a wide variety of mission capabilities.

www.anduril.com

Very quiet, water proof and 100 min flight times

Surely commercial is only a couple of years behind at worst - maybe less with the $$$ AMZ can throw at it to own the home delivery space?

 

[Otisangb]

To counter some of the "it's a long way off" comments here about range, weather and noise, I saw this mil-spec drone announced today:

Anduril - Ghost 4 sUAS

Ghost 4 is an autonomous VTOL sUAS that operates on the Lattice AI platform. Ghost 4 is modular, man-portable, waterproof, and combines long endurance, high payload capacity, and a near-silent acoustic signature for a wide variety of mission capabilities.

www.anduril.com

Very quiet, water proof and 100 min flight times

Surely commercial is only a couple of years behind at worst - maybe less with the $$$ AMZ can throw at it to own the home delivery space?

32 trillion operations/second and I am still struggling with the walk and chew gum thing. Quite an impressive machine.

 

[pelagic_one]

As a Silicon Valley-based technical consultant, I‘m under non-disclosure agreement with certain autonomous vehicle and drone delivery startups around the world. I can’t mention names, but you can search for the medical drone delivery company who’s been delivering in remote African locations for a few years now. They’re now given FAA approval to test the same capabilities in North Carolina, and have shown tremendous success.

There are also driverless taxi companies testing now, ocean-going drones deployed worldwide, along with the several companies recently approved by the FAA for delivery testing.

The autonomous aerial, terrestrial and nautical drone concept is real, and coming to a neighborhood near us soon enough. I can’t speculate how this will affect the hobbyists, but I intend to keep flying, sailing and driving somewhere.

 

[Starz]

Is it just me or is 51Drones making videos sometimes just for the views?

King of click bait. View count is his motivation.

 

[russellg]

Look at the big picture, somebody has to attach the product to the drone (only small light items can be carried, no 6 pack of beer), make sure the drone is charged, fly when 0% possibility of rain, fly when it is not too cold or high winds, After product is delivered, land the drone and make sure it gets charged. The person flying the drone could drive to the delivery destination much faster to deliver the product. And then you have the person who could tie some fishing line to a rock and uses a sling shot to bring the drone down.

 

[maelstrom]

I'm not convinced. For a few special cases (inaccessible areas or time critical deliveries) I can, perhaps, see the value of something like this. However, I can't see how they can possibly deliver safely in congested urban areas, and that's ignoring the barrage of complaints they're likely to get. Even the best autonomous systems with the latest AI will eventually make mistakes - there's no such thing as a 100% safe drone flight. There are so many things outside of the technology which could go wrong which you just can't allow for. As @Phantomrain.org said, "whats going to happen to the fly away, bird strikes, the magnetic interference. the rock throwers, the drone thief's" - the list goes on!

On the other hand, a delivery van can potentially carry hundreds of parcels at once (including the large, heavy ones which a drone can't) and whilst it may take longer to deliver everything its much more likely that the packages will all be delivered safely and with minimal nuisance or danger to the public. A single drone couldn't possibly replace a single van (but could possibly cost a similar price for a commercial drone). You'd need whole squadrons of them to do a similar job and any cost/benefit analysis would be a joke. To recoup their cost, they'd have to charge significantly more for delivery which would dramatically reduce the number of people prepared to use the system. A few people would inevitably try drone deliveries, but I can't help thinking the novelty would quickly wear off. This is just a gimmick trying to fill a need which just doesn't exist in most cases!

 

[Fearless Flight]

Is it just me or is 51Drones making videos sometimes just for the views?

Isn’t that the objective of all of them. Some use the sky is falling more than others.

 

[Jet skier]

We have been on this hobby to know very well its limitations. As much as it could be exciting to see drones becoming of commercial use, there are too many obstacles to over come, like reliability, liability, range, weather, automation, and certainly a few more. I can't see it happening, and if so, it will be in the very far future.
Don't forget, companies love to use marketing on products that might or might not become to life. I just don’t see how it would be cost effective using drones one of those drones but probably cost more than a delivery truck with its driver not to mention the insurmountable logistics in the cities if they came in my neighborhood it would probably get shot at

 

[THE CYBORG]

When I get parcels through the post I sign for them or if I am not in the house a note is left & they go to the local sorting office for me to pick up at my convenience.
How would a drone know I received the package & not some random passer-by who could take it & the drone if it lands.
Not everyone is honest ?