Amazon filed a petition for exemption with the FAA last week so that they could fly prototype drones outdoors as part of research and development for their future Prime Air offering. It’s a quick read, with a couple fun points:
Because Amazon is a commercial enterprise we have been limited to conducting R&D flights indoors or in other countries.
[…]
We will effectively operate our own private model airplane field, but with additional safeguards that go far beyond those that FAA has long-held provide a sufficient level of safety for public model airplane fields – and only with sUAS.
It’s pretty amazing to think that Amazon would have made this much progress—eight or nine generations—without flying anything outside. One of the items listed in their request was the mention that their drones flew up to 50mph with 5lb payloads. How big is this facility that they’re testing in?
Or is this a lie that many working on serious commercial efforts with drones right now is telling?
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