Amazon drones are coming to town. Some locals want to shoot them. -- DON'T DO THAT

[OldBroad44]

Considering these drones will only be able to deliver 1 or 2 light packages at a time, they are going to have abysmal financial efficiency compared to just delivering with trucks or standard mail services. I would bet the farm that the real money amazon plans to earn with these drones is using them to collect "data" on the public and then selling that data to govt agencies like the NSA. Imagine how much the govt would love to have an army of surveillance drones flying over every US city at all times.

I think the idea is to use drones in rural areas, not cities. Places where its not economical to deploy a fleet of Amazon trucks.

 

[VanceInWA]

I think the idea is to use drones in rural areas, not cities. Places where its not economical to deploy a fleet of Amazon trucks.

Maybe Amazon will get a special exemption from FAA, but current flight radius of a civilian drone is about ten miles. Not sure that will help much in rural areas. Similarly, a civilian drone controller can only reach a mile (in optimum topography). Will be interesting to see how Amazon implements this program and whether they get special authorizations from FAA.

 

[EHJ]

Maybe Amazon will get a special exemption from FAA, but current flight radius of a civilian drone is about ten miles. Not sure that will help much in rural areas. Similarly, a civilian drone controller can only reach a mile (in optimum topography). Will be interesting to see how Amazon implements this program and whether they get special authorizations from FAA.

10 year old FPV tech - about $2k in gear - 25 miles RT.

Autonomous way-point operation is super cheap now...