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Alphabet's Wing drones get FAA approval to make deliveries in the US
Wing, the Alphabet-owned startup, has become the first drone delivery company to gain the Federal Aviation Administration's approval to make commercial deliveries in the US. Bloomberg reports that the company was granted the regulator's blessing after fulfilling many of the safety requirements of a traditional airline.
Gaining the FAA's approval as an airline was necessary for the way Wing wants to operate its drone deliveries. Current FAA regulations prevent a drone from being flown outside of an operator's line of sight, while licenses for automated deliveries have previously only been granted for demonstrations where drone companies haven't been allowed to accept payment for their services. Gaining the FAA's approval as an airline meant creating safety manuals and training routines and implementing a safety hierarchy.
The approval means that Wing, which has the same parent company as Google, can start making deliveries in Virginia in the coming months, where it plans to deliver goods from local businesses to rural communities in Blacksburg and Christiansburg. Wing will be able to apply for the FAA's permission to expand to other regions in the future.
[...] For Wing, gaining the FAA's approval took months, but Bloomberg notes that the process is likely to be a lot quicker for future drone delivery companies now that the regulator has worked out which airline rules are appropriate for drone operators. These competitors could include Amazon's Prime Air, which has yet to launch a commercial drone delivery service, despite having performed its first public demonstration in the US back in 2017.
See also Wing becomes first certified Air Carrier for drones in the US
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday April 24 2019, @04:39PM (5 children)
The name Wing makes me think the vehicles are fixed wing, but are they?
There are a few fixed wing drones that are also VTOL capable, but they tend to lose much of the lift and efficiency gains that fixed wing configurations provide.
If the delivery vehicles can or can't VTOL makes a huge difference in what kinds of deliveries they can make.
I wonder how long it will be before FedEx and friends try to make their heavy cargo jets fully automated, and later pilotless...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 24 2019, @04:52PM (2 children)
As long as autopilot works, and the plane is not a Boeing 737 Max, that should be fine.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JNCF on Wednesday April 24 2019, @04:58PM
...until a security vulnerability is found and 4chan knocks down the Freedom Tower for the lulz.
(Score: 3, Funny) by choose another one on Wednesday April 24 2019, @05:02PM
As long as autopilot works even the 737 Max is fine, it's only when the meat pilot is in control that Max-Hal decides he shouldn't be and engages lawn-dart mode.
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Wednesday April 24 2019, @06:01PM (1 child)
The image looks like a fixed wing. It may be a tiltrotor or launch from a vertical position.
If they are performing package delivery, they could use traditional runway or catapult launch from home base, and VTOL once unladened with the package.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday April 24 2019, @06:56PM
An aerospace engineer acquaintance who's been working in "drone space" since ~2010 is all about fixed wing, tilt rotor VTOLs, and of course the catapult launch always helps...
There's complexity in tilting the rotors, and his latest conception uses three rotor-props to achieve VTOL, where a single without the tilt mechanism would be more efficient in level flight, but that soft vertical landing is so much better on the public perception, even if dropping a package from 30' at 20mph wouldn't be too different from the normal treatment the packages receive via UPS/FedEx ground transport.
🌻🌻 [google.com]