Amazon tests delivery drones at secret Canada site after US frustration

[Flyaway]

Tired of frustrations with waiting on FAA approval they've moved their operations to the more permissive environment of Canada. Looks like other US companies will be following their lead as well.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/mar/30/amazon-tests-drones-secret-site-canada-us-faa

 

[yasotay]

This is the way the world ends, this is the way the world ends, this is the way the world ends. Not with a bang, but a whimper.

 

[Bill Walker]

the more permissive environment of Canada

When did that start? I've missed it.

 

[Orionblamblam]

the more permissive environment of Canada

When did that start? I've missed it.

It's perhaps not so much that Canada is so permissive, it's that the US has become so restrictive.

Someone needs to take a flamethrower to the US federal law code.

 

[Jemiba]

..Someone needs to take a flamethrower to the US federal law code.

Don't think, it's the law code in the US. Without being an expert for law, it may actually not
be that different from other countries. But the way, it is applied, probably is. Filing a lawsuite
against the producer of a microwave oven, because there was no warning not to put your cat into
it, would probably be (still yet !) to no avail in most countries. But the US have an army of
lawyers, just waiting for such cases and courts, that actually yield a point to them.
The US legal system regularly is used as a laughingstock in our media here: Do something
completely silly, file a lawsuite and win a lot of money ... in the US !
But again, the basic laws may not be the problem, just the interpretation.

 

[Flyaway]

the more permissive environment of Canada

When did that start? I've missed it.

Is the airspace really that much more complex in the U.S. as suggested by the FAA that's what I'd like to know.

 

[Grey Havoc]

...Someone needs to take a flamethrower to the US federal law code.

Based on what I have heard about said code, you'd need FAEs for the job!

 

[Grey Havoc]

http://gizmodo.com/inside-amazon-prime-air-multiple-drone-models-smart-f-1753722433

 

[shedofdread]

I still can't see how this can be any more than a marketing exercise. There's no way it would be legal in any of the *prime* (do excuse the pun) market nations / regions. One wonders if someone quite senior is an enthusiast and the huge amount of exposure this sort of thing generates allows that enthusiasm to be indulged???

 

[sublight_]

The FAA bull#$^@ has to go. They have been protecting the big airlines at the expense of everything else for the last 40 years.

 

[gtg947h]

Is the airspace really that much more complex in the U.S. as suggested by the FAA that's what I'd like to know.

It's not the airspace (though with TFRs and the Washington ADIZ, one wonders...) but the UAS restrictions. Instead of trying to be proactive and come up with something that works, the FAA ignored the issue until the screaming masses of the paranoid public and still-clinging-to-1970 pilot population screamed "Do Something!" loud enough. Then they went and Did Something, all right. That's why the rules for any UAS operation not for pure recreation required a pilot, a spotter, licensing, permits, and the whole nine yards (not sure if all of that still stands). That's why we have this silly UAS registration database that's going to be ignored by the vast majority of the public.

The FAA has a serious problem of trying to cram anything new into the box of the past. It would only be a slight exaggeration to state that the FAA would refuse to certify a jet engine because it didn't have dual magnetos; they still can't seem to get over the fact that an electric airplane doesn't use a piston engine to drive the propeller, and therefore doesn't need an engine-driven fuel pump.

 

[Flyaway]

Here’s Amazon’s new transforming Prime Air delivery drone

Amazon has unveiled the latest version of its Prime Air delivery drone, a hybrid aircraft that’s capable of vertical takeoff and landing as well as sustained forward flight. The company says it wants to launch a delivery service using the drone in “the coming months,” but has not said where this might take place or how many customers it might cover.

 

[Michel Van]

Nice that Amazon testing Drones to deliver good to there customers

But they get flight permission for that ?
in over regulated Europe certainly not...

in Mean Time in USA
A Self driving Car with automate delivery Robot on board...

...the robot Apokalypse brought to you by FORD

This is the way the world ends, this is the way the world ends, this is the way the world ends. Not with a bang, but a whimper.

It's gonna be like in Kurt Vonnegut Novel "The Piano Player"

 

[muttbutt]

Nice that Amazon testing Drones to deliver good to there customers

But they get flight permission for that ?
in over regulated Europe certainly not...

People have been testing delivery drones throughout Europe for years....in my own country the postal service has them testing deliveries to the Islands off the West coast.

 

[martinbayer]

For some weird reason all this current conjecture strangely reminds me of those good old nineteen fifties forecasts that come the swinging sixties by golly everyone (well, at least everyone in the first world) would have a nuclear powered helicopter sitting in their driveway (flyway?) for their daily commute...

 

[Foo Fighter]

In the 60's and 70's we were told there would be very little need to commute at all with huge numbers of drones employed at home. What they would be doing was not clarified.

 

[shedofdread]

Other than for certain very specific applications, I really can't see this [wait for it....] taking off. Yes, post to outlying communities (perhaps IF there's a hub to receive same and it's not too far a flight which then rather rules out the whole "outlying" thing) but I doubt there'll be a quad-copter alighting gently on my front lawn with the latest offering from Iron Maiden any time soon.

On a related note - anyone remember a children's book called 'Tas and the Postal Rocket' ( http://www.reginaldalecmartin.co.uk/tpr.htm)? Like delivering the post by rocket, I can't help but think parcels by drone is a pointless dead end. However an autonomous Transit van; there's another matter.....