Secret Bezos delivery helicopters operate from mystery Canadian base to evade US regulators Amazon's relationship with Uncle Sam's Federal Aviation Authority has apparently deteriorated so much that the web-based retailer has fled its jurisdiction for the more liberal regulatory regime of Transport Canada. Showing off its secret-keeping credentials, the Guardian reports that Amazon has an undisclosed drone-testing …
Oh sorry, I forgot that most Americans think that the USofA is the lower 48 states and forget about Hawaii and Alaska.
Or perhaps Putin has re-purchased Alaska from the Yanks and didn't tell anyone?
At least in most of Canada you can be really alone (apart from the mozzies that is). The danger from failing drones can be minimised. Perhaps el Reg should move it's rocket from NM to SK?
"... forget about Hawaii and Alaska."
Well, a trip to Hawaii is pretty expensive, and all this snow is making me want to go, so it's probably best if I do forget about Hawaii...for now.
Sarah Palin lives in Alaska. Isn't that a good enough reason to forget about it?
That sounded quite critical....!
Indeed I used to think that drone delivery for Amazon was nothing more than a marketing gimmick but when I read that same article I was surprised to learn that "payloads of up to 5lbs account for 86% of all the company’s packages" - surprised me and if it's true you can see why they might be considering drones
It will save them yet more money too, as they will be able to lay off thousands of delivery drivers.
We are getting rapidly to a strange place now, where the "haves" don't need the "have nots" at all, not for even skilled menial tasks like delivery or driving, let alone window washing or shelf stacking.
...and impractical for a few other reasons other reasons, such as COST and time constraints.
Assume that a drone with a book dangling from its claws can manage 60 mph and has the typical drone endurance of 30 minutes. This sets two physical limits:
1) it can only deliver within 15 miles of its take-off point because its range at 60 mph is 30 miles and it is flying an out-and-return mission.
2) The delivery flight will take 15 minutes from take-off to delivery. This leaves just 15 minutes to receive the order, pick and pack it and get the parcel to the drone port. Otherwise they can't meet the 30 min order-to-in-your-hands target. For this to work reliably they'll need a warehouse at every drone-port.
So, far from letting them sack their current delivery drivers, this cunning plot is likely to need even more people to staff the matrix of warehouses and drone-ports covering the country: these will include delivery drivers to keep the drone-ports stocked with best-selling items, a crew of pickers and packers plus drone operators and mechanics at each drone-port and, of course, a management team for each drone-port.
Doubling or quadrupling the drone's range and/or performance doesn't make a lot of difference to the practicality of this delivery method.
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"So, far from letting them sack their current delivery drivers, this cunning plot is likely to need even more people to staff the matrix of warehouses and drone-ports covering the country"
No it won't.
Their whole business model is about *reducing* cost. My thoughts here are these.
From your comments about range they will then need several distribution points. But a 15 mile radius (if that is indeed the range) is pretty big. So one centre will cover the majority of Greater Manchester, for example.
You only need to get completed orders shipped out pre-packed to these locations. So the distribution centres themselves can be more-or-less unmanned, lights-out centres. I'm sure it is not beyond the whit of man to have the whole system fully automated, with a skeleton crew to respond to mechanical or other issues.
If the devices are delivering to local 'click-and-collect' locations, that may be a very cheap way to deliver packages, and avoid the Royal Mail (is it still Royal now it's privatised?).
So it could be quite a disruptive technology. Interesting.!
The CBC has a much better and more detailed article on this:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/amazon-tests-delivery-drones-at-a-secret-site-in-canada-here-s-why-1.3015425?cmp=rss
As for the size of the packages, I believe they will deliver up to 2.3 kg. That probably covers a big chunk of what people buy.
However, I have serious doubts about whether there is much demand for it. Future delivery improvements are more likely to revolve around conventional truck delivery to unmanned clusters of pick-up boxes where you can go to pick up the item at your convenience instead of a delivery truck coming to your door. This will reduce costs while still giving reasonably quick delivery.
If I want something delivered, I want it delivered to my door, not somewhere I need to get in the car and fetch it from.
I can see this working quite well in busy cities, not so good in the countryside. Certainly cheaper, faster and less polluting than a delivery truck. Maybe not so good when it's like today - a bit windy.
I would have thought the opposite -- delivery in rural areas is more expensive as the dwellings are much further apart. Mind, most couriers do not even drive down my (typical 200m) laneway to drop off parcels at the house but tie them to my mailbox. On the other hand, hunting for a drop-off somewhere in a nearby field would not be enjoyable.
"Certainly cheaper, faster and less polluting than a delivery truck."
You'd need a lot of drones to replace one delivery van if the drone can only carry 5lb and takes 30+ minutes per delivery. And at least a couple of sets of spare batteries on charge for each drone since they need to be replaced after every one-off delivery. And careful monitoring of batteries since you don't want to send a drone out to the limit of it's advertised range on a two year old set of batteries that have been charged 3 or 4 times per day.
In answer to the question of unforeseen demand...
Five (ten?) years ago, I seem to remember 'experts' saying there would be no demand to watch video on small, hand-held devices. Indeed they insisted it was folly to work on any such devices.
Hmm...
<Rant>
[And I am someone who hates all this video -- why can't these news sites not only get rid of video but also the bloody useless static images they *have* to display as well? The Beeb is pretty annoying at this, with stylised, stupid images that add no value. My phone costs increase because I have to download the image, Firefox mobile *won't* turn it off, and Vodashit have managed to block access using Opera Mini, which *does* turn it off and only gave me TEXT. (Which is just what I want.)]
</Rant -- feel better now>
In the past both countries have used the others intelligence agencies to "legally" spy on their own citizens, viewing the border as a mere technicality. Why not companies?
Of course American's may want to revisit those conventions. Now that the border and border responsibilities are being "integrated" and the USA is increasing it's enforcement presence in Canada as part of the integration they may want to prevent American companies using Canada to break the spirit of American laws.
Should they decide that American laws apply in Canada (as they have done in the past) they have many more options than just using the FBI and CIA agents working out of Vancouver offices, including hundreds of military trained "SWAT" personal just sitting on the border.
What could be more enjoyable, on a lazy afternoon, than sitting on my front porch with my trusty shotgun, taking pot shots at drones flying through my airspace?
Free swag falling from the sky would likely more than cover the cost of ammunition, and my favorite birding dog would get some much needed exercise retrieving my free gifts.
I honestly don't know what the law says about this, but I suspect I might be well within my rights, in a rural area, to both discharge my shotgun at any 'intruders' flying over my property and also to keep any items that I might find have landed on my property.
Why do some people just have to shoot down every fresh idea before the presenter ever gets a chance to explain? Haters got to hate? Most places I have lived receive Fed Ex and similar packages the same way: the driver pulls up on the street in front of your house, or up your driveway if that's practical, unbuckles his seat belt, jumps out of his truck, walks to the door and drops the package on your front door step. Then he walks back to the truck, buckles up and drives away. All the drone has to do is save the driver a hike to the front door.
OBJECTIONS:
1) Some trigger-happy redneck is going to shoot the drone out of the sky.
ANS: Bullshit, the drone never reaches the sky, and the driver is never more than a few yards from the drone and would clearly be able to identify any shooter.
2) When nobody is home anyone can see the drone delivery and steal the package.
ANS: When nobody is home anyone can see the truck delivery and steal the package. What has changed?
3) Drones have a limited range, less than an hour flying time.
ANS: Who ever claimed drones would be making 30 mile deliveries or used to replace trucks and their drivers. Drones will be employed to make the drivers more efficient, reducing the need to back out of driveways, maybe allowing them to make a few more deliveries per shift, or reducing the amount of trucks on the road, saving gas and wages.
In short, give the idea a chance before you shoot off your mouth that it will never work. And try thinking of why it can work, maybe.
I live in a tight community of over 300 homes. We have the same UPS and Fedex drivers. They deliver to an average of 15 per day on one trip. The last thing I want to hear are 15 drones buzzing by every day. As to your statement, I'm not saying you are wrong. I'm just saying that they would have to perfect quiet stealth drones first before I would tell anyone to put their shotguns away.
Oh really. You are within earshot of all 300 houses in your community, are home all day, every day to listen for drones, keep your windows open all year round so you won't miss a chance to bitch about those drones taking a minute to drop off their packages and return to the truck, and would rather listen to a diesel delivery truck going through the gears entering and backing out of every driveway. It sounds to me like you're not happy unless you've got something to whine about. You might want to look up the term NIMBY.
I live in a small community too. There's a firehouse down the road, a hospital a few miles farther down, an interstate too. Sirens and traffic noises are a fact of life. This is 2015, not 1815. My advise to you is: build a bridge and get over it.
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And there it is. It never fails. In your original post you said to give it a chance and help to make it work. So I said that it can work by making the props work in stealth mode and not sound like over sized mosquitos and instead of following up on that idea, you go off track to attack my unknown lifestyle with a pissing contest about how your community is smaller with all types of noises. So here it is. I'm retired and am home most days but even when I'm up at the clubhouse, I can hear large trucks both inside and outside our area. We are also under the approach to a very busy airport where the planes fly less than 1000 feet above us. Being an old folks mobile estates community, we have paramedics and sirens approaching us on a regular basis. Most of our homes are about 12 feet from the street. The gasoline, not diesel, operated mail and UPS/Fedex trucks stop in front of our homes and leave the packages on our carport steps. Incidentally, his name is Sean. There is a huge difference between normal everyday noises and large mosquitos. So while I say again politely, that I still agree with you about improving on new ideas and giving them a chance, why don't you take the time to actually read and or actually listen to a spoken conversation before going all defensive and argumentative. Right now I'm thinking that you must be a real joy to be around at a mixed group party.
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Re: Give the idea a chance
P.S. Maybe I don't like the sound of your dog barking at every bicycle and pedestrian passing by, or snarling at my kids when they pass within fifty feet of your fence, or the sound of your wind chimes keeping me awake every windy night, or the sound of your daughter and her girlfriends squealing when they are playing in your backyard after school, or the sound of your son and his buddies buzzing around the neighborhood on their electric skateboards and scooters, or playing football in the street, or your older, unlicensed kids driving up and down the street in your golf cart with its radio blaring, but I would never suggest they can not or should not. And I most certainly would not suggest a shotgun as a solution. What are you, some kind of terrorist? Don't like the way things are so let's fix it with a gun?
P.P.S. And don't tell me you wouldn't consider a gun, but you would stand by while your neighbor would draw a bead across your yard at a drone. If I ever saw anybody in my neighborhood pull out a gun and aim it at any thing other than a poisonous snake in his own backyard, I would have the law on him so fast he wouldn't have time to pull on his socks for his trip to the cop shop.
Amazon distribution system has no trucks of their own. Products are brought to their warehouse by various commercial carriers. Orders are filled and merchandise trucked to less than truckload carriers that do home delivery where it is cross-docked to terminals in cities where final delivery is made. Once the merchandise is in a delivery area, it is again cross-docked and loaded in the delivery van that takes it to the customer. Amazon has many distribution centers, so the drones are probably planned for areas close to the DC's. Many of these were built with a variant of Tax Incentive Financing. Those expire. Thus the dream of cutting delivery costs. Problem is that in the United States there is something called aerial rights. Below FAA authority there is a tangled web of local ordinances, then FCC and new laws regarding drones are being enacted everyday. As for a common delivery point like Amazon is using and now serviced by trucks, the drone congestion could make for amusing video. Even the U.S. Air Force with it's human controllers have difficulty with rogue drones. Having waited at several Amazon warehouses from 4 to 12 hours to get a 53 ft semi-trailer loaded because before actually loading takes place the merchandise must be sorted, the idea of delivering within 30 minutes of order placement will take a lot more revamping and cost than delivery drones. The FAA should put it on the fast track. Let it fail and save a lot of time and money. Or they can let Bezos be like Captain Ahab and chase the great white whale.
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