Looks like 30 minute delivery may be coming sooner rather than later. Also, looks like they’re hiring a whole department of tech people if anyone’s looking.
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I live a few miles (ATCF) from an Amazon distribution center. It will be interesting to see how this plays.
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It is very cool idea and certainly a geeks dream. In reality I don’t see how this is going to play out. We have enough “near-misses” and issues with our current air traffic control system and it is highly centralized and controlled. How do you manage, hundreds or possibly thousands of remotely controlled vehicles in a confined airspace like a city? It would require a very high-tech local ATC system. The aircraft themselves will need a high level of situational awareness of the obstacles and vehicles that are around it. Not too mention the safety and security. It would be pretty easy to bring down one of these drones and steal its payload, or the craft itself. Who pays the medical bills when someone get severely lacerated from spinning props or a faulty battery monitor causes one to fall from the sky and hit someone. A liability insurance companies nightmare.
Don’t get me wrong I am thrilled they and others are pursing it. If I was younger I would love to be a part of such a project. (I would love to now, just can’t afford too. 
)
Even if it doesn’t come to full realization just the exercise of trying to figure it out will yield a lot of good idea.
The conspiracy theorist in me (a tiny tiny rarely surfacing part of my brain) wonders if this is a ploy to get the American public used to having drones with cameras flying overhead 24/7
(The rational part of my brain scoffs at this idea)
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The only thing that will become of this is to many people shooting them down with their B.B. guns for the quad parts and package.
With a camera and GPS? Not hard to track the thief.
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I seriously doubt Amazon would be part of such a conspiracy. However, it certainly would be one of the unintended consequences. If it should become “normal” for quadcopters to buzz around everywhere then it certainly does become easier for the bad guys to do bad things using their own.
here is my concern:
i open the door and i find an Amazon Air prime quad delivering a package… now I’m thinking, wait i didn’t order anything from amazon, but cool i got a package so the curiosity in me, pushes me to grab the package, bring it inside the home and verify it. and boom, suddenly it’s not a pleasant surprise but more of a Terrorist threat… or worst an attack…
so how would Amazon guarantee the public safety, from others using CLONES of Amazon Air Prime Quad with a ROGUE agenda’s ???
and btw with a cheap Hollowing mask and a fishnet you can safely and unanimously grab one of those Quads, modify it and reuse it to fool or spy on others). (camera and GPS won’t help here @ GUS :whistle: )
also if the gov authorizes such drones how would they control and know that they all belong to amazon and are not clones with other agendas…
Jay.
I guess Amazon might try to get exclusive Close to ground air rights in an smaler radius around a couple of Distribution Centers. By this they could use a more simple proximity allert / collision detcetion System.
May be they even start with a couple of manually controlled drones.
By this they can collect a lot of experiance in coordinating their own drones, so a new General Close to ground air traffic control System can be developed.
Ah… nothing a good ole ski mask cannot take care of. ;D
As far as GPS goes, simple GPS jammer. Or just walk away after it falls.
Heck, just send up my quad and knock it down like a falcon.
Seriously, this has to be the dumbest idea I have seen from a large company in quite a while.
Many of us have flown these quad copters. We know what they are capable of.
The flight time alone is what makes this a silly idea. Let alone slap a package on it belly. Even carrying an envelope the FOR(Field Of Range) would be so small as to be impractical. Even if they were to get 20 minutes flight time, that would only be 10 minutes out from base. Then when it returns we need to spend another 30 to charge it back up again. I will admit this is a neat idea, but we are many, many years away from pulling something like this off.
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@ VersaModule - May be you have to sign to recharge it after receiving your package 
[quote=“Jay Jay”]
here is my concern:
i open the door and i find an Amazon Air prime quad delivering a package… now I’m thinking, wait i didn’t order anything from amazon, but cool i got a package so the curiosity in me, pushes me to grab the package, bring it inside the home and verify it. and boom, suddenly it’s not a pleasant surprise but more of a Terrorist threat… or worst an attack…
so how would Amazon guarantee the public safety, from others using CLONES of Amazon Air Prime Quad with a ROGUE agenda’s ???[/quote]
Sorry, but that’s a silly analogy. That’s no different than the situation today with traditional boxes and shipping. What is more plausible is that terrorists would take advantage of the fact that we become blind to the quads and just fly a bomb over a large crowd and explode the bomb and quad together. 
What about a mask and a de-soldering iron?
Edit: Whoops missed VM’s post