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Not Amazon but drone delivery is becoming a thing, a startup called Zipline is currently (successfully) running trials in Rwanda of drones that are used to deli
by kjullien 8y ago
Not Amazon but drone delivery is becoming a thing, a startup called Zipline is currently (successfully) running trials in Rwanda of drones that are used to deliver blood to hospitals where it would never be able to arrive in a timely fashion otherwise (because of terrain, poor access etc). From what I remember delivery time was about half an hour. It is however clearly not as elegant a solution as Amazon was proposing with their quadcopters, Zipline uses scaled model airplanes with an old-school tail catch system for "landing" (same concept on aircraft carriers). Not "elegant" but certainly gets the job done.
I know I saw a YouTube video covering this recently but cannot find the link sadly.
- PavlovsCat 8y agoI never heard of this before, made my day, thanks :) https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=zipline+rwanda https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=zipline+rwanda http://www.flyzipline.com/ http://www.flyzipline.com/
- Jyaif 8y agoPlanes require much more engineering to deal with than quadcopters, but they are way more efficient, and thus the right long term solution.
- ThePadawan 8y agoThe landing procedure is really amazing to watch - and I personally find it elegant as in "it solves a difficult problem very easily". Maybe not elegant as in "ballet" or "like the smooth landing of a passenger plane".
- walrus01 8y agoZipline essentially scaled down and copied Insitu (now Boeing)'s method for landing a ScanEagle drone.