Please consider Google Spinoff’s Drone Delivery Business First to Get FAA Approval.
An offshoot of Alphabet Inc.’s Google has become the first drone operator to receive government approval as an airline, an important step that gives it the legal authority to begin dropping products to actual customers.
The subsidiary, Wing Aviation LLC, now has the same certifications that smaller airlines receive from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and the Department of Transportation. It plans to begin routine deliveries of small consumer items in two rural communities in Virginia within months, the company said.
It [the FAA] required Wing to create extensive manuals, training routines and a safety hierarchy — just as any air carrier must do.
In order for Wing to operate over longer ranges and actually charge for the service, it needed to become a full-fledged air carrier. The FAA confirmed the air-carrier certification was signed, but didn’t offer additional comment.
Unlike Amazon.com Inc.’s Prime Air, another would-be drone delivery company, Wing will sell items from local merchants. Now that it has gotten FAA approvals, it will begin finding business partners in the two towns, Burgess said.
Project X
Also consider FAA Certifies Google’s Wing Drone Delivery Company To Operate As An Airline.
The Federal Aviation Administration has certified Alphabet’s Wing Aviation to operate as an airline, in a first for U.S. drone delivery companies. Wing, which began as a Google X project, has been testing its autonomous drones in southwest Virginia and elsewhere.
“Air Carrier Certification means that we can begin a commercial service delivering goods from local businesses to homes in the United States,” Wing said in a statement posted to the Medium website.
“This is an important step forward for the safe testing and integration of drones into our economy. Safety continues to be our Number One priority as this technology continues to develop and realize its full potential,” Secretary of Transportation Elaine L. Chao said in a statement from the agency.
Wing’s electric drones are powered by 14 propellers, nearly all of which are top-mounted to help carry loads of up to 1.5 kilograms (3.3 pounds). They’re meant to deliver a wide range of everyday items, from food and drinks to medicine and emergency supplies.
By developing delivery drones — and a retail system that would connect customers with local merchants — Google’s parent company is directly competing with Amazon, which has been readying its own unmanned delivery system, called Prime Air.
Pizza by Air Coming Soon
From ordering your food, coffee, medicines or convenience items from the Wing app on your smartphone, Wing’s drone will deliver these items to your yard just a handful of minutes later.
I expect Wing will team up with fast food restaurants very quickly. Expect Pizza Hut, Domino, etc., deliveries in much of the nation within a couple years.
Amazon is sure to follow soon. United Parcel Service and DHL Express also have been developing their own drone systems.
These processes will not work in heavily populated urban high-rise centers, but much of the county will be getting pizza and other fast-food deliveries by drone within a couple of years.
Advantages
Drone delivery will be faster, cheaper, and use less carbon than delivery by auto. Food delivery drivers will vanish within a few years except in the inner city.
Some thought drone delivery would be a decade away if ever. It’s 2019.
The free market, on its own accord will solve any real or imaginary problem with climate change.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
I really don’t like the idea of drones filling the sky and constantly flying over the top of my house
Ignorance alert… The free market, the one that brought us lead poisoning, the high sugar diet, species extinction, pesticides and industrial waste won’t solve overpopulation. It is instinct and culture that dictates human behavior not corporate ingenuity. And it is the sheer number of people that determines how much of the planet is consumed, polluted and destroyed.
Eventually this may well contribute to deurbanization – a trend that is already underway, as there are more and more location-independent jobs.
The FAA also approved the 737 Max.
That part, FAA approval, is the most worrisome part of this. If there ever was way to limit free competition; hence increase costs, decrease quality and open up for unlimited progressive style arbitrary privilege favoritism; requiring a Royal Stamp and/or Regime Certification in order to conduct business, is that way.
I like the vertical take-off feature of the design. Once the aircraft transitions to horizontal flight, wings will provide lift and improve energy efficiency. It does what the military V-22 Osprey does, but has less chance of crashing since the rotors don’t tilt. Could Amazon get into the military aircraft business?
Great idea, but doesn’t deliver the pizza directly to the sofa so Americans will still waste some calories, right?
Not only that, but those same Americans will have to make do with Big Gulps of sugar syrup smaller than 100oz….
Y’all up fer some beer and skeet? Yaaahoooo!
Yup, when I read WV, the first thing that came to mind was target practice.
“Why will it use less carbon? Flying is a lot more energy intensive than driving.”
Delivering a pizza by a tiny drone is more energy intensive than driving a car?
Yes, that is correct. For a light package delivered to one location a drone will be more efficient. I was thinking package delivery with heavier packages and lots of stops. Trucks will be more efficient at that.
From the video, it looks like the drones will be kept at Wing, and will be dispatched first to the merchant, then fly to the customer, and ten back to Wing. Hovering over both merchant and customers while waiting for them to get done…. It doesn’t seem like UPS grade route efficiency is their primary goal.
Why will it use less carbon? Flying is a lot more energy intensive than driving.