Amazon to bring 30-minute drone delivery to 500 US locations by the end of 2026

[brucek]

But I would prefer we actually measure that before declaring the occasional five pound package overhead to be “visual clutter.”

If by measure you mean "have the public policy discussion using specific details" then sure of course that's the best/only way to do it.

But if you mean we have to let the low sky fill and noise level ramp first, then absolutely not. We don't have to see it to understand the impacts.

Having airplanes at 30,000 feet and gated by a very finite number of runways that can launch at most a specific number of flights per hour is one thing. But allowing every warehouse to launch as many drones per second as they'd like all flying at a few hundred feet where they will be hard to miss either visually or audibly, is an entirely different concept. In my book that's something that needs to be stopped before it starts. I'm someone who both shops online frequently and values the beautiful environment I live in, and if what's on the table is I can save a few bucks and some wait time from each order, I'd much prefer to keep the beautiful environment and not get that shipping benefit.

 

[Loadedaxe]

If by measure you mean "have the public policy discussion using specific details" then sure of course that's the best/only way to do it.

But if you mean we have to let the low sky fill and noise level ramp first, then absolutely not. We don't have to see it to understand the impacts.

Having airplanes at 30,000 feet and gated by a very finite number of runways that can launch at most a specific number of flights per hour is one thing. But allowing every warehouse to launch as many drones per second as they'd like all flying at a few hundred feet where they will be hard to miss either visually or audibly, is an entirely different concept. In my book that's something that needs to be stopped before it starts. I'm someone who both shops online frequently and values the beautiful environment I live in, and if what's on the table is I can save a few bucks and some wait time from each order, I'd much prefer to keep the beautiful environment and not get that shipping benefit.

Nobody proposed allowing “every warehouse to launch as many drones per second as they'd like.”

You have invented an airborne Wild West and then quite understandably concluded that the airborne Wild West sounds unpleasant. Did you actually read the article and look into how these operations are regulated, or did you just knee jerk your way to the keyboard and start typing?

These are regulated commercial aircraft operations. Amazon needs FAA certification, approved operating areas, airspace authorization, safety procedures, collision-avoidance planning and environmental review. The FAA is already examining noise and community impact before these operations expand.

So yes, by “measure it,” I mean exactly that: determine actual noise levels, flight density, routes, safety record and community impact, then regulate accordingly.

What I don't mean is, “release 75,000 drones at dawn and we'll see who survives.”

And there's another rather large assumption hiding in your argument: that every online order suddenly becomes a drone delivery. It won't. These aircraft have payload, range, weather and operational limitations. They're aimed at a subset of last-mile deliveries, not replacing UPS trucks with a permanent metallic cloud.

If actual operations demonstrate that 500 flights over one neighborhood every afternoon sound like an enormous electric beehive, regulate the routes, hours or flight density.

Perfectly reasonable.

But “stop it before it starts because I can already imagine what it will be like” isn't measuring the tradeoff.

That's announcing the conclusion before collecting the evidence.

At that point we're no longer doing public policy.

We're reviewing a movie trailer.

 

[brucek]

Sounds mostly reasonable, except I'm still not buying that they have to be allowed to exceed the community tolerance threshold first and only then can the community start to try to claw its peace back.

I think it'd be perfectly reasonable to declare up front, in specific terms, that the enormous electric beehive is illegal and it is never to be experienced. Whether that's in noise level, visual density, or other metrics I don't know.

Similarly, why would we have to put the "500 flights over one neighborhood" in real production use first, vs. requiring the applicant to put them over a test range first and measure it there prior to granting the operational license?

I read with approval the approval steps required to launch the first drone. What this article didn't teach me a lot about was the volume limits included in that first license, and that's where my main concerns are. Very large difference between we can get 25 prescriptions out to patients who need them and we can get 25,000 packages to all comers, and I do not doubt for a second Amazon's operational ability and willingness to scale to very large numbers in a dense city if they are allowed to and it saves them a penny per package.

 

[Loadedaxe]

Sounds mostly reasonable, except I'm still not buying that they have to be allowed to exceed the community tolerance threshold first and only then can the community start to try to claw its peace back.

I think it'd be perfectly reasonable to declare up front, in specific terms, that the enormous electric beehive is illegal and it is never to be experienced. Whether that's in noise level, visual density, or other metrics I don't know.

Similarly, why would we have to put the "500 flights over one neighborhood" in real production use first, vs. requiring the applicant to put them over a test range first and measure it there prior to granting the operational license?

I read with approval the approval steps required to launch the first drone. What this article didn't teach me a lot about was the volume limits included in that first license, and that's where my main concerns are. Very large difference between we can get 25 prescriptions out to patients who need them and we can get 25,000 packages to all comers, and I do not doubt for a second Amazon's operational ability and willingness to scale to very large numbers in a dense city if they are allowed to and it saves them a penny per package.

I agree that nobody should have to endure six months of an electric beehive over their house just so regulators can eventually announce, “Yep, that's annoying.”

Where I think you're still starting from the wrong assumption is that Amazon gets a general permission slip marked DRONES and then decides for itself whether that means 25 flights or 25,000.

The FAA reviews proposed operating volumes, hours, operating areas and noise impacts. Some of Amazon's current proposals are specifically modeled at up to 1,000 MK30 flights per day per delivery center, and the FAA explicitly lists reducing daily flight volume as one possible noise mitigation requirement.

So that 500 flight hypothetical isn't necessarily something that has to be inflicted upon a neighborhood first and measured afterward. Much of that impact is modeled and reviewed beforehand.

And your test range suggestion is perfectly sensible...which is probably why Amazon has already been testing these aircraft at an FAA UAS test range.

The catch is that a test range can tell you what 500 drones sound like under controlled conditions. It can't perfectly tell you what 500 geographically dispersed flights sound like across 174 square miles of actual neighborhoods, roads, buildings, trees and existing ambient noise.

That's where monitoring real operations still matters.

So yes...establish limits beforehand, measure beforehand wherever possible, monitor afterward, and tighten the limits if reality doesn't match the modeling.

That I can get behind.

See...We managed to get from “stop it before it starts” to actual regulatory policy without a single dog dying or Joby aircraft falling from the sky.

 

[jdrch]

This is one of those "seemed like a good idea" at 1st things. As most US porches are covered, where would the packages be dropped anyway? On the driveway? Also, dropping electronics seems like a great way to send returns through the roof, all puns intended.