Tuesday, December 10, 2013

FAA sniffs at Amazon's package delivery drone

After an avalanche of good press from Amazon's video clip of a small whirry helicopter type drone landing a package at a customer's doorstep,  FAA has announced that it doesn't like the idea and will cause trouble for it.  FAA announced in Aviation Week the drones would be limited to 55 pounds total takeoff weight, line of sight operation, daylight only, and altitude not to exceed 400 feet. 
   Line of sight is the killer restriction.  I mean how many customer abodes are within eyeshot of the Amazon warehouse[s]?  Even using binoculars?  Darn few. 
  We will pass over the technological challanges of beyond line of sight operation.  Even after the drone has found the delivery address using GPS, it still has to locate the door, or the mail box, sort out apartment numbers,  distinguish between walks and driveways, and other stuff that mailmen have no trouble with, but robots will find challenging. 
   Anyhow, Amazon created a lot of good publicity for itself, and FAA managed to look like the Grinch. 

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