Amazon have made their first delivery by drone in the UK, but is it really going to take off?
With limited air time due to battery life are we really going to see Amazon drones zig-zagging all over the sky delivering our precious orders?
This editor doesn’t think so. The trial is taking place in Oxfordshire and the first delivery was made to a house within 10 minutes of their Amazon Air warehouse. So, unless we all move to Oxfordshire, or Amazon roles out warehouses all over our lovely green and pleasant land i can’t see that this anything but hype for the company.
You can view their film of this sensational event at the following address:
https://www.amazon.com/b?tag=skim1x164751-20&node=8037720011
Much as I am for utilising the technology as much as possible in the business world, the limited battery life, limited payload and laws relating to beyond line of site flying can only hamper this project, keeping it strictly limited to small items being delivered in a small radius of the actual warehouse.
Other, possibly better uses, are flying goods from a mobile platform to deliver to hard to access locations, which is a definite probability as small islands, houses up mountains and isolated or cut off locations – these are where the drone will really com into it’s own.
I can’t see Amazon building hundreds of ‘mini’ warehouses all over the country, let’s face it, do you really want that? Especially since they will only be able to delivery small gadgets, emergency rations or medication – you couldn’t put a Monopoly game on a drone after all!
I do wish them luck all the same.
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