Amazon wins FAA approval for Prime Air drone delivery fleet | Hacker News Reader

Amazon wins FAA approval for Prime Air drone delivery fleet

cnbc.com

45 pointsheshiebee13 comments

Drone delivery is going to happen, but most people aren't going to benefit from it in the immediate future. Drones are too loud and the self-flying software isn't advanced enough to effortlessly and efficiently deal with the complications of urban delivery. Rural areas and exurbs are great options for drones because noise is less impactful and you can more easily drop off a 5lb box in front of someone's porch and not have to worry about hitting another building, cable/power lines, being targeted by thieves/the mischievous, etc. An Amazon van driving 10+ miles to and 10+ miles back to make a single delivery is also very expensive (gas, maintenance, driver, wear and tear, etc.), especially compared to an Amazon van in a city which will unload most of its cargo within a few square blocks.

Between Starlink and fast/cheap Internet in the most remote areas of the country, working from home becoming more mainstream, and things like drone delivery, the rural parts of this country are primed to become a far larger part of the economic and social fabric of this country. Toss in self-driving cars and cities lose even more of their advantages. It's an interesting time to be alive.

Anyone else trying to remember what year it was when we all thought this was a cyber monday stunt? 2013

https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2013/12/01/amazon-bezos-...

https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/drones/amazon-p...

I'm skeptical that this article is accurately portraying the FAA permission that Amazon has been granted.

The FAA has been aggressive about forbidding beyond visual line of sight operation of drones without spotters or radar coverage. I suspect the permission is not for true BVLOS deliveries, but rather deliveries with a spotter watching the route, or BVLOS with a radar covering the entire route, or some other commercially impractical system of monitoring.

The FAA is being hamstrung by the pilots association and various other unions that are fearful that this kind of automated delivery will reduce the volume of pilot and union jobs available in America. The Luddites in DC are the most powerful force in American robot regulation today.

Wasn’t it UPS that was prototyping a series of drones that docked on top of the truck, using it as a hub to deliver packages within a short range? I could see something like that being a logical next step for this tech.

That experiment very publicly failed in a demo in front of journalists.

Link?

The pilots association should instead have focused their lobbying to stop FedEx's recent development[0] rather than waste their time and money protecting the jobs of delivery drivers.

[0] https://eu.commercialappeal.com/story/money/industries/logis...

Having a difficult time understanding the logistics of this. Is there a resource online with more details of what Amazon might do? I live in the 'burbs, but putting a drone-delivered box on my doorstep is quite non-trivial it seems.

I'm worried about birds. The sky is the only safe place for them. I don't think I'm being overly sensitive either.

You only have to worry about deaf birds. Drones are pretty loud.

I guess all that noise might affect the life of birds in some way or another.

In my personal experience any radio controlled aircraft coming near a bird's nest will be challenged in the air. It certainly stresses them out in the mortal danger kind of way. It made me change where I do my “Park Flying” before I injured a bird.

I've flown a lot since the late 90's. A bunch of different areas. My dad was very into it. I've never had a bird attack an airplane or helicopter. I've never flown quadcopters/drones much as they require no skill and not fun. The closest I ever saw was a small foamie where a bird swooped towards it. Never came that close and moved on.

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