Amazon is not just the largest - but one of the best online shopping companies in the world. Just in time when the biggest shopping season of the year started, Amazon CEO Jim Bezos made a surprising announcement: His company intends to deliver packages under two pounds by mini drones via air in thirty minutes after the order has bee placed. Not yet, but in several years though.
Everybody with common sense asks whether this is realistic? Here just a few simple questions:
1. Amazon processes hundreds of thousand orders per day. Does Bezos really think that this is technically and logistically doable?
2. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) does not allow such a drone traffic in the US at this time. However, they intend to approve some drone use - particularly for law enforcement purposes. Nobody in the aviation industry believes that they would permit thousands (or maybe hundreds of thousands) of mini drones clogging the US air space at any time. Does Amazon know more than we do?
3. The US market is thousands of miles wide. A big and fast jetliner needs five to six hours to cross the continent. How is a mini drone supposed to manage the distance in thirty minutes - not to talk about adverse weather conditions and airspace restrictions?
4. How are GPS-guided mini drones supposed to do their job in big cities and wooded areas with houses hidden under the trees?
Business and technological visions are bread and butter of our economy. Our free-market society needs them in order to create jobs and wealth for all of us.
However, even the wildest visions must be rooted in technical, logistical, political and economic reality. If this is not the case - the "vision" is nothing more than a cheap Public Relations stunt. Such "gimmicks" do not impress the people. Does Amazon really need that?
via Examiner National Edition Gadgets & Tech Channel Articles http://www.examiner.com/article/amazon-mini-drone-delivery-by-air-is-nothing-more-than-a-pr-stunt?cid=roadrunner