On 60 Minutes tonight a rather interesting topic was revealed by Bezos, Amazon's Chief. Multi copter drone delivery of Amazon's goods purchased on-line and dropped to your door within the hour is likely 10 years away. The way I see it, the technology in not new....the hurdles are political in nature

There are FAA and FCC hurdles to overcome, licensing of space on various satellites for GPS access by the tens of thousands of addresses (coordinates), etc etc. But I suspect these obstacles will be overcome.

The problem I see with thousands of Amazon drones(delivery boys??) flying around at any given moment is that it may put a damper on some model plane activities. These things will likely occupy similar altitudes as we fly RC and Free Flight at.

Hopefully it's nothing....But It's in our best interest that the AMA should keep a close eye on this innovative way of doing business by this giant company with extremely deep pockets......

Yep, Hopefully AMA can keep things in check for us so I can continue to get a good nights sleep...

in reality, just the cost of the multicopters to do what they want, is probably prohibitive. not just the initial cost, but the ongoing maintenance costs as well.

As long as they fly above FAA's minimum altitude I have no problem, but if they fly in my airspace above my house I'll shoot them down. May have to buy an air gun to keep it legal though.

not gonna happen, just like flying cars. The airspace and risk of injury is not in favour for this at all.

Can you imagine trying to service and run a fleet of 20,000 delivery drones a day ! QUICK buy lipo stocks , hahahahha

Dead batteries would be a huge issue. And if using gas, the fuel cost would be high. At least with one package per drone. I would think you would need to load a stack of 20 packages or more.

Proof positive, no matter the respect he gets from having position and money, idiots are everywhere.

Agreed - so will this "new" shipping method somehow improve the mess they already have? If we look at the reason shipping is done via current methods is the fact that you can get huge payloads on the ground and on sea. Trains can literally haul tons upon tons of items, trucks 40 to 50 thousand pounds on average. Just how much can a quad haul? What is the fuel to payload weight capacity ratio?

I remember reading years ago at how costly it was to use choppers for freight and was never really feasible. The cost to do normal freight task was enormous. The main advantages with choppers is that you can drop things in secluded areas and places that are difficult to put planes, trucks, trains, etc. That is really the benefit. Think of why they are used to drop soldiers the way they are - costly but in that case effective. UPS trucks haul a lot of cargo. Just how much can be put on a quad?

Yep, idiots are everywhere. Ever notice how companies like UPS are busy investing in the latest and greatest with a lot of risk and never cleaning up their current cluster messes? A good strategy for UPS is to get their current operations (mess) under control. Maybe they are planning on having a quad on each truck and when the little brown truck comes out it can then launch the quad and fly to your door and drop the package!

This was a stroke of genius on Amazons part. Seems like it's more of a publicity stunt that has garnered a lot of media attention as well as creating a buzz all over. Look at how many times the word Amazon has come up in these forums alone.

Will they be required to operate "within the programming of a recognized community-based organization and in accordance with a community-based set of safety guidelines?"

Maybe a "stroke of genius" but idiotic is the very same people that are always highly opinionated, adamant and very boisterous that one guy with an FPV...maybe doing some innocuous job for a fee, is somehow going to irreparable damage the hobby are very quite now about the stated vision/intent of this company's "genius"...

Amazon should deliver scalding hot coffee with these. What a media bonanza!

They could buy their delivery quads from Hobby King

Actually it might have been a misquote by the Amazon's Chief...he may have really meant he could have delivered to you a new FPV within the hour...LOL

Just being silly but its a silly subject for the AMA forum.

Agreed! Here is a good line for this thread: Doesn't Amazon own Hobby King?

I can see it now, a quad delivering your new HK plane from China with a case of Amzoil and a Spektrum "brown out" special transmitter. BTW, just kidding as I fly Spektrum too, however in the light of silliness this fits well.