This is the dumbest!

[DoomMeister]

UPS to deliver medicine by drone to large Florida retirement community

UPS plans to use drones for deliveries of prescription medicines from a CVS pharmacy to The Villages retirement community in Florida.

techxplore.com

I live here and see no advantage what so ever for delivery of prescriptions by this method. There are already several CVS pharmacies throughout The Villages and each has delivery service to those that need it sent to their home. This is nothing more than pure folderol and an extra expense to the customer. I fail to see any cost savings or service advantage to support this. A flight of less than 1/2 mile to a location near The Villages does not make any sense what so ever. Flights from an airport to each CVS pharmacy for a days shipment might make sense, but this is just corporate America invading low altitude airspace. Many that need store-to-door delivery would never benefit from drone delivery, because a drone could not deliver right to the door anyway.

CVS is now on my Do Not Use list!!!

 

[Thomas B]

They’ll never get past all the trees around my front door anyway.

 

[DoomMeister]

I can see using a drone to deliver emergency scripts to a patient where a friend or relative could take delivery from the drone and give it to the patient. What was proposed in the article is about as forward thinking as witch hunts and is just a large corporation taking advantage of CoVid19 stimulus funds. Another case of large corporations raising funds intended to keep small businesses afloat during this crisis.

 

[maintenanceguy]

An esperiment. A lot of testing will need to be done for drones to handle deliveries on a large scale. Why not build the software and infrastructure deliveirng somethign light and tiny to a small community?

 

[DoomMeister]

A small community? Maybe you need to look at the size of The Villages. It is anything but a small community, unless you are comparing it to a major metropolis. Maybe they should use your town for their experiment. You have open arms for them.

With several CVS pharmacies, as well as Walgreens, Rite Aid, Winn Dixie, Publix, WalMart, and The Villages Pharmacies I can’t even imagine why prescriptions need to be delivered by a drone. Each one of them already offers free home delivery and most of that could be done by electric golf cart which could carry many deliveries in a single trip.

 

[CactusJackSlade]

Um... Telephone and power lines.... I'm dubious of anyone doing drone delivery unless in a rural area. In the city or suburbs. I'm all for technology, but at the present state I would not be banking on a drone for my critical meds. Also, what about "drone bandits" snagging the delivery?

 

[Thomas B]

Um... Telephone and power lines.... I'm dubious of anyone doing drone delivery unless in a rural area. In the city or suburbs. I'm all for technology, but at the present state I would not be banking on a drone for my critical meds. Also, what about "drone bandits" snagging the delivery?

Or the whole drone!

 

[Starz]

Waiting to see how well these systems operate. Probably a few lawyers will be involved at some point when someone’s dog guarding the front yard gets clipped.

 

[Cymru]

I can see the benefit in using drones to get to hard to reach villages and disaster hit areas but im fairly sure Florida has roads which work well enough to get stuff there faster.
Great new source of merchandise for prescription drug thieves too. Just take them off a passing drone.

 

[hiflyer201]

I don't fly my own drone near the front of my house so I'm anxious to learn something from their .."technique" I do have a tall ladder..so I might soon have a brand new (to me) drone.

Seriously ..I'm hoping none of this ever comes to pass. I can see it's benefit only in extreme cases in desolate areas.

 

[anotherlab]

UPS to deliver medicine by drone to large Florida retirement community

UPS plans to use drones for deliveries of prescription medicines from a CVS pharmacy to The Villages retirement community in Florida.

techxplore.com

...Many that need store-to-door delivery would never benefit from drone delivery, because a drone could not deliver right to the door anyway....

The third paragraph from that 8-month-old article said that was not the use case.

The first flights will be less than a half-mile long to a location near The Villages, then a ground vehicle will deliver the prescription to the resident's door.

You can have a drone send a payload of critical care medications to a secure drop off point, where a human will deliver to the door. While I still question the ROI on using a drone to do this, it's not delivering to the door.

 

[DoomMeister]

Um... Telephone and power lines.... I'm dubious of anyone doing drone delivery unless in a rural area. In the city or suburbs. I'm all for technology, but at the present state I would not be banking on a drone for my critical meds. Also, what about "drone bandits" snagging the delivery?

Telephone and power lines are no problem here in The Villages. That is one thing that was done right with the infrastructure here as it is mostly underground. That doesn’t mean everything was done with forethought. A ‘green’ mass transportation method is something that should have been implemented 15 years ago when The Villages started expanding rapidly.

The bulk of the development is in an area of about 50+ square miles in central Florida. It stretches from CR 42 in Marion county to SR 44 in Sumter and Lake counties and averages about 4 miles wide. In the last two years a newer addition to The Villages started along CR 468 about four miles south of SR 44 in Sumter county near the Coleman Federal Prison Complex. Nice neighbors!

 

[GFields]

All the older folks I know wouldn't have any idea of what a drone is LOL. Joking aside, I am curious of how they plan to drop the scripts.

 

[DoomMeister]

I can see the benefit in using drones to get to hard to reach villages and disaster hit areas but im fairly sure Florida has roads which work well enough to get stuff there faster.
Great new source of merchandise for prescription drug thieves too. Just take them off a passing drone.

This is one thing we can agree on. Drones can be of great service for the cases you stated and during times of natural disaster such as the aftermath of hurricanes when many major roads are blocked with debris. At those times recreational drone flights are prohibited and all sUAS traffic is to be routed through disaster relief. This is a perfect scenario for the use of delivery drones as well as SAR missions.

 

[Ty Pilot]

My guess is that drone delivery will likely never overtake or supplant mass deliveries like we see with UPS or FedEX trucks, and my opinion is it is just for show or very limited or special circumstances.

A typical delivery truck holds and delivers between 450 and 600 packages a day, is operated (usually) by a single person needing very limited special skills and can do so in nearly any weather.

When you look what it would take from an operational and financial standpoint to do this same job by 'drones' in the same time, it becomes very clear that a fleet of drones (and operators) would be needed to accomplish the same task in the same time, albeit at a far greater expense. This does not even take into consideration - weather, which will impact UAV flight operations on a constant basis.

 

[Cymru]

I can see it being a very niche (and expensive) "i need this particular part/item, time sensitive and i need it absolutely immediately" in areas such as cities were driving across them might take a few hours but the actual horizontal distances are small.

Otherwise it makes no sense, its low volume, small payload and really has no benefit over normal road/bike based if the item isnt required absolutely instantly.

I can see maybe a role for flying specimens to and from hospitals and labs in an automated fashion as well. Those sort of things make sense.

 

[DoomMeister]

Using drones for inspecting infrastructure also makes very good sense. Railways, power distribution, natural gas lines, pipelines for gas and oil, et al could all be mapped on sectional charts and schedules laid out so others would know when the inspection drones would be flying, what altitude, and other needed information. This would be like other special use airspace areas, so no need for RID.

There could be similar type routes worked out for routine medical flights to hospitals and such. When published on sectional charts you would know what areas to stay clear of or request clearance to fly a mission there.

This whole situation could have been more easily handled by requiring people to learn and respect simple rules of airspace classification and obtaining clearance to fly in controlled airspace as well as following safe flight practices.

 

[Cymru]

Active detect and avoid is going to be the long term solution there.

 

[DoomMeister]

That is very true and there needs to be an economical solution for older systems that are still viable aircraft.

The other issue that should be addressed with consumer grade drones is a manual for inspection and maintenance of the aircraft and controller that should be performed by the end user. This is something that is sorely lacking from all manufacturers.

I am digressing here. We should get back to the topic of the thread.

 

[Don Wiley]

The deliveries by UPS for CVS in The Villages is a Proof of Concept for a much larger and long-term delivery plan by UPS, the process must start somewhere. To-the-door deliveries are a long way away, as is profitability, as it is now there is no cost to the customers, it is all R&D budget money footing the bill.

Monday (12/14) I watched them do a quick turnaround, the aircraft was on the ground about 5 minutes, swapping the payload and a very brief pre-flight check then a remote launch of the aircraft. This was a huge improvement from the 1st flight in May (see YouTube video below). New week they start the next phase of testing with a new aircraft with a specially designed hoist to lower the payload and operating under Part 135 rules.

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I'm sure there were folks on the beach a Kittyhawk who saw no advantage to with the Wright brothers were doing 117 years ago...