5 ms·

All the "drone delivery" startups and big co projects have outright failed or been nothing more than PR. There might be something about this that is a lot more

All the "drone delivery" startups and big co projects have outright failed or been nothing more than PR. There might be something about this that is a lot more difficult than can be seen prima facie, starting probably with the flight time of battery powered drones..

BobbyJo 5y ago
The biggest barriers are the law and liability. There is a lot of red tape, and rightfully so. Flying heavy items over residential areas comes with a lot of risk, risk that someone doing so illegally, with an untraceable aircraft, likely would not care about.
- ghaff 5y ago
  And you're 1.) competing against the economics of standard delivery vehicles 2.) Ref: law/liability. At scale you're possibly violating airspace of people's property and, while I don't expect people in non-rural areas to start using them for skeet practice in general, I would expect lots of complaints to the government if they become annoying.
  - Ancapistani 5y ago
    > you're possibly violating airspace of people's property There is no such thing in the United States. All airspace is under federal jurisdiction, and the only agency with rule making authority is the FAA.
    - ghaff 5y ago
      Clearly people have some rights to the space over their property. Case law isn't well established but, outside of airport landing rights, the consensus seems to be something like 400 feet which is in general uncontrolled airspace. https://aerocorner.com/blog/drone-over-private-property/ https://aerocorner.com/blog/drone-over-private-property/ I probably won't shoot down a delivery drone though I may file a complaint. But if a drone starts poking around at low altitude over my property, it will definitely be skeet shooting practice time (on a rural property).
      - thrill 5y ago
        Anyone that starts taking potshots at drones over their property is risking federal charges for shooting at an aircraft.
        manwe150 5y ago
        I thought (more relevantly) there were also laws about shooting without a backdrop to catch stray bullets, since this sounds like a densely populated area, also perhaps shooting towards people: bullets that go up, come down again somewhere else at nearly the same speed.
        leephillips 5y ago
        No, they come down at their terminal velocity, which is far slower. Could give you a bump on the head, though.
        jfk13 5y ago
        They can still kill you. https://blogs.bcm.edu/2019/12/31/what-goes-up-must-come-down-the-dangers-of-celebratory-gunfire/ https://blogs.bcm.edu/2019/12/31/what-goes-up-must-come-down... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5912041/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5912041/
        leephillips 5y ago
        Do you claim to be able to understand the second link? Here is a sentence from that paper: “The mortality rate from falling bullets in general is about 32% that is significantly higher than nonfalling bullets 2%–6% although the latter's impact is much more potential to kill.” I read the first one too. The problem with these anecdotes is that none of them rule out that the injuries were caused by a bullet on a shallow trajectory, with velocity much greater than terminal velocity. The only evidence is that no one heard a shot, but this is not convincing. Nevertheless, there is a potential for serious injury and nobody should be shooting into the air for fun.
    - grp000 5y ago
      Drones are going to force changes to those rules, if they haven't already.
    - spoonjim 5y ago
      This hasn’t really been well tested in court. If I hover a drone for 20 minutes at 6 inch altitude in your front lawn in front of your toddler and you blow it to smithereens with a 12 gauge you’re not likely to be prosecuted for it.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
nradov 5y ago
Zipline has been successfully delivering medical supplies by drone for several years in Africa. Not sure if they're profitable yet. https://flyzipline.com/ https://flyzipline.com/
jazzyjackson 5y ago
I was also going to mention zipline in Rwanda, last video I saw was two years ago but it looks like they’re doing well enough to be hiring interns in San Fran. Really cool tech, the way they have a sort of assembly line for getting ready-to-fly parts on the package in the space of minutes - these are life and death deliveries out here! https://youtu.be/jEbRVNxL44c https://youtu.be/jEbRVNxL44c https://flyzipline.com/careers/ https://flyzipline.com/careers/
itslennysfault 5y ago
There was a time when I was seriously considering a taco delivery drone business in Austin, TX. North and south of downtown (where most people live) it's a very short city. So it seemed perfect. Anyways, after talking to a lawyer and learning about FAA regulation I decided it was too much work. The short version is a drone with line of sight can fly under x' (think it was 600). Over that it must have first person cameras, and is technically an aircraft so it must be flown by a licensed pilot and get FAA clearance... but you can't drop a taco from 600', and you can't go below 600' without the operator having line of sight.
- elliekelly 5y ago
  So could you, in theory: - Have a licensed pilot fly the tacos remotely above 600’ to the delivery address. - Fly in a holding pattern at 600’ until the user indicates in your app they’re available to receive delivery. - Pass off control so the user (who has LOS) becomes the operator and uses your app to maneuver the drone down to drop the taco and then back up to 600’ where it returns to the remote pilot’s control. It would probably be a really expensive taco delivery but I think I’d pay a premium for a taco if I got to pilot a drone for a minute?
bsder 5y ago
Would you want a lawnmower flying over your head? The biggest problem is that drones are effectively flying lawnmowers.

BobbyJo 5y ago

The biggest barriers are the law and liability. There is a lot of red tape, and rightfully so. Flying heavy items over residential areas comes with a lot of risk, risk that someone doing so illegally, with an untraceable aircraft, likely would not care about.

ghaff 5y ago
And you're 1.) competing against the economics of standard delivery vehicles 2.) Ref: law/liability. At scale you're possibly violating airspace of people's property and, while I don't expect people in non-rural areas to start using them for skeet practice in general, I would expect lots of complaints to the government if they become annoying.
- Ancapistani 5y ago
  > you're possibly violating airspace of people's property There is no such thing in the United States. All airspace is under federal jurisdiction, and the only agency with rule making authority is the FAA.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    Clearly people have some rights to the space over their property. Case law isn't well established but, outside of airport landing rights, the consensus seems to be something like 400 feet which is in general uncontrolled airspace. https://aerocorner.com/blog/drone-over-private-property/ https://aerocorner.com/blog/drone-over-private-property/ I probably won't shoot down a delivery drone though I may file a complaint. But if a drone starts poking around at low altitude over my property, it will definitely be skeet shooting practice time (on a rural property).
    - thrill 5y ago
      Anyone that starts taking potshots at drones over their property is risking federal charges for shooting at an aircraft.
      - manwe150 5y ago
        I thought (more relevantly) there were also laws about shooting without a backdrop to catch stray bullets, since this sounds like a densely populated area, also perhaps shooting towards people: bullets that go up, come down again somewhere else at nearly the same speed.
        leephillips 5y ago
        No, they come down at their terminal velocity, which is far slower. Could give you a bump on the head, though.
        jfk13 5y ago
        They can still kill you. https://blogs.bcm.edu/2019/12/31/what-goes-up-must-come-down-the-dangers-of-celebratory-gunfire/ https://blogs.bcm.edu/2019/12/31/what-goes-up-must-come-down... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5912041/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5912041/
        leephillips 5y ago
        Do you claim to be able to understand the second link? Here is a sentence from that paper: “The mortality rate from falling bullets in general is about 32% that is significantly higher than nonfalling bullets 2%–6% although the latter's impact is much more potential to kill.” I read the first one too. The problem with these anecdotes is that none of them rule out that the injuries were caused by a bullet on a shallow trajectory, with velocity much greater than terminal velocity. The only evidence is that no one heard a shot, but this is not convincing. Nevertheless, there is a potential for serious injury and nobody should be shooting into the air for fun.
  - grp000 5y ago
    Drones are going to force changes to those rules, if they haven't already.
  - spoonjim 5y ago
    This hasn’t really been well tested in court. If I hover a drone for 20 minutes at 6 inch altitude in your front lawn in front of your toddler and you blow it to smithereens with a 12 gauge you’re not likely to be prosecuted for it.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

nradov 5y ago

Zipline has been successfully delivering medical supplies by drone for several years in Africa. Not sure if they're profitable yet. https://flyzipline.com/ https://flyzipline.com/

jazzyjackson 5y ago

I was also going to mention zipline in Rwanda, last video I saw was two years ago but it looks like they’re doing well enough to be hiring interns in San Fran. Really cool tech, the way they have a sort of assembly line for getting ready-to-fly parts on the package in the space of minutes - these are life and death deliveries out here! https://youtu.be/jEbRVNxL44c https://youtu.be/jEbRVNxL44c https://flyzipline.com/careers/ https://flyzipline.com/careers/

itslennysfault 5y ago

There was a time when I was seriously considering a taco delivery drone business in Austin, TX. North and south of downtown (where most people live) it's a very short city. So it seemed perfect. Anyways, after talking to a lawyer and learning about FAA regulation I decided it was too much work. The short version is a drone with line of sight can fly under x' (think it was 600). Over that it must have first person cameras, and is technically an aircraft so it must be flown by a licensed pilot and get FAA clearance... but you can't drop a taco from 600', and you can't go below 600' without the operator having line of sight.

elliekelly 5y ago
So could you, in theory: - Have a licensed pilot fly the tacos remotely above 600’ to the delivery address. - Fly in a holding pattern at 600’ until the user indicates in your app they’re available to receive delivery. - Pass off control so the user (who has LOS) becomes the operator and uses your app to maneuver the drone down to drop the taco and then back up to 600’ where it returns to the remote pilot’s control. It would probably be a really expensive taco delivery but I think I’d pay a premium for a taco if I got to pilot a drone for a minute?

bsder 5y ago

Would you want a lawnmower flying over your head? The biggest problem is that drones are effectively flying lawnmowers.