
Despite FAA Setbacks, Amazon Prime Air Makes Notable Hires - eplanit
http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/20/despite-faa-setbacks-amazon-prime-air-makes-notable-engineering-nasa-and-aerospace-hires/?utm_content=buffer15eaa&utm_medium=social&utm_source=linkedin.com&utm_campaign=buffer
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mkl
The FAA thing didn't actually affect Amazon or their plans for Prime Air:
[http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/blog/techflash/2014/06/fa...](http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/blog/techflash/2014/06/faa-
s-ruling-doesn-t-affect-amazons-drone-delivery.html)

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dmix
Strange how this author mentions the FAA about ten times without researching
Amazon's official statement on the matter.

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icpmacdo
I think that the US may legislate it's self out of a really interesting
industry, I would think it could be possible some smaller country with a good
population density could become industry leaders here.

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jamornh
That sounds a lot like it will do very very well in Singapore especially if
Singapore Post depots act as the hub for these drones. The entire country
could be completely served by them.

Although there's no front lawn to speak of, so they will have to be able to
slot things into mailboxes.

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jahewson
A tropical coastal city with high winds, heavy rainfall and multiple monsoon
seasons doesn't seem ideal, despite the small area.

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kyro
I love the idea of Amazon Prime Air, but there's one concern I have. I know
next to nothing about the FAA and airspace regulation, so I'd like to hear
from someone who does.

The common argument to raised concerns of drones buzzing about is "well, we
have cars and delivery trucks!" That doesn't quite sit well with me because we
have designated specific areas to the use of automobiles. It's easy to stay
off the road. We can consciously stay out of harm's way, even if it's an
asshole driving recklessly.

How is this accomplished with drones? How is the airspace structured in a way
where drones are in designated areas that either avoid or are avoided by
humans? How do you prevent an asshole piloting a rogue drone from dropping a
heavy item on someone in a balcony? One can make the argument that these
concerns also apply to planes, but I'm assuming both the airspace and
ownership of planes are heavily regulated and monitored. Will we need a
similar system to manage drone use?

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newaccountfool
I'm wondering what the hell happens when the drone gets shot down...I know if
there is 100$ of good AND a multirotor then these things will get shot from
the sky. No matter if they have GPS or not.

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Schwolop
You can avoid this and all the quasi-legal unregulated airspace drama by...
wait for it... just being regulated and flying higher up in regulated
airspace! Sure, meeting FAA regulation is hard, but it's necessary and I'd be
very confident that's the right route for a service like this. If they fly
high enough the only point it can be shot down is over Amazon's depots when
they pick up goods, and over the house of the recipient when it drops them
off. The former is well isolated, and the latter is unpredictable from the
point of view of the hypothetical shooter.

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sschueller
A much more likely delivery path will be something like Uber + Amazon.

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potatolicious
Probably, though also probably a more depressing/less glamorous version of
Uber + Amazon. Having people run around in cars is going to be horrifically
non-economical, and at a commodity level delivering packages is going to be
_far_ less profitable than driving people around.

More likely we'll see companies hire scores of underemployed former-members-
of-the-middle class and put them on mopeds/bicycles (as density dictates).
They are cheaper, and unlike machines scale up/down as seasonality requires.
They are also highly flexible and capable of things like ringing doorbells,
opening doors, climbing stairs, following notes on doors, and all the other
details around delivery that "drones for everything!" acolytes tend to gloss
over.

This is already the reality in places like New York - you can already get a
huge array of things delivered within minutes by people zipping around on
e-bikes.

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rjsw
You could get them to make multiple deliveries in one trip, maybe call them
something like "postman".

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potatolicious
Hehe, that's the big difference though right? We already have a really
efficient, profitable delivery infrastructure. It just doesn't do near-real-
time deliveries.

You can have fast deliveries, or you can have efficient/full-utilization of
delivery workers. Even in a place as dense as New York City it's still very
difficult to aggregate enough deliveries together that profitability for
workers becomes substantial. Most are running around with 1-2 deliveries at a
time.

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downandout
If people want drone-based delivery, someone will make one that individuals
can privately buy that will fly out to pick up packages. That's legal today.
Any individual can do anything they want with a drone they own as long as it
does not fly above 400 feet - it's the business owning it and using it for
commercial purposes that makes it illegal under current rules.

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jahewson
An operator can't do anything they like, their UAS has further restrictions
which would rule out automated parcel collection:

\- flown a sufficient distance from populated areas

\- should be kept within visual line of sight of the operator

Source: [https://www.faa.gov/uas/faq/](https://www.faa.gov/uas/faq/)

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baddox
And, like many rules the FAA makes, there is debate over whether they have the
legal authority or physical power to enforce them. That's why they took Trappy
to NTSB court rather than arresting him.
[http://www.forbes.com/sites/johngoglia/2014/04/12/faa-
files-...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/johngoglia/2014/04/12/faa-files-appeal-
brief-in-closely-watched-drone-pilot-case/)

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potrebitel
What if Amazon are building delivery AI not only for drones, but something
else (cars?) Yeah, they say drones, but it's way too expensive project (people
involved, locations, offices, etc ) to be for single purpose. Maybe they're
just building something bigger.

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sidcool
I would rather change that URL, the url_source points to linkedIn.com. Just
saying.

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robbrown451
I'm sorry, but this is insane. No local government is going to allow these
things to be buzzing around everywhere for no good reason.

People may like it for a about a week ("neato, I can get my package lickity-
split!") and then will say screw this, those things are making a racket and
driving me batty.

It's not like they can be used to deliver groceries. And they presumably have
to return to the base after each delivery, because they can't carry that much.
That's just crazy inefficient.

I could see small electric rolling vehicles that make automated deliveries.
But noisy little helicopter drones? Not going to happen.

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danshapiro
You're forecasting the future based on the state of technology at the present.
That is unlikely to point you in the right direction.

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jjoonathan
On the contrary, it's quite possible for practical implementation details to
hold back a field for hundreds of years. My favorite example is the hydrogen
fuel cell. It was invented at a time when Abraham Lincoln was busy launching
his first political career and still looked like this:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln#mediaviewer/Fil...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln#mediaviewer/File:Abraham_Lincoln_by_Nicholas_Shepherd,_1846-crop.jpg)

yet 180 years later hydrogen fuel cells still aren't a competitive energy
storage strategy. Less spectacular examples include flying cars and speech
recognition / AI.

