The United States Sees its First Successful Drone Delivery

While it may still take some time for us to see drone deliveries be used for household items, the field of medicine will most likely benefit from the use of UAVs sooner. Just recently, a drone approved by the Federal Aviation Authority was able to successfully deliver medicine to a health clinic located in rural Virginia. The drone was able to carry a little over 4 kilograms of medical supplies and delivered the supplies with ease.

The drone was manufactured by Flirtey, an Australian drone producer. The delivery took place under the watchful eyes of the FAA and NASA. It took the drone about three minutes to fly from Lonesome Pine Airport in Virginia to the clinic located in Wise County Fairgrounds. The UAV was strapped with 24 medical packages. This goes to show how useful and effective drone usage can be, especially in the medical field.

Since a lot of places across the world are difficult to traverse or reach by any other vehicle, using a drone is often the most cost effective and efficient way to deliver medicine. Timely delivery of such medicine can spell the difference between life and death, where flying a plane to the clinic may prove to be too costly or getting the package there via car may take too long.

On the commercial side, companies such as Amazon are pushing the FAA to approve commercial usage of drones because the company stands to make a fair chunk of money through its Prime Delivery service. However, the FAA is taking its time in making a decision due to safety and security concerns. Nonetheless, the mass availability and affordability of drones has already made them a popular vehicle to use in the United States, at least for recreational purposes.

Even the United Kingdom legislation has disallowed drones to be flown within 50 meters of a building or person because it finds their usage a possible risk to places and the general safety of the public.