I saw on the news a few days ago that Amazon are currently trialling “deliveries by drone” in the Darlington area. Not sure if this topic has been covered before? What are peoples thoughts?
Colours to the mast…I disike everything Amazon was and is and stands for personally. That said, spent time upgrading the wifi network in an Amazon warehouse recently - gotta pay the bills though right?
I can just see capitalist pressure being applied to the status quo of things (as usual) and before you know it, rules will change and airspace will become a free for all. The CAA (as toothless as they are) will be overpowered and powerless to act. Money will talk. Accidents and injuries will increase ( god forbid) up until they ban hobbyists who control their drones in favour of AI/Automated commercial flying.
You read it here first.
Or am I over exaggerating…?
I think as time goes by they will be given a fixed hight to fly. So the rest of us know that high say X. So when we fly just don’t stay/Hover in hight X. Also I think this is where drone sensors come in, the drone stand a chance of getting out the way before a collision.
If Amazon get to do this then we as drone flyers will be able to do the same thing…One set of rules for every one…Might just make things slightly easier on us Hobby Flyers…
Speaking of Amazon…They are selling the basic Neo with 1 Battery etc for £119.00…Good buy.
I saw a news item about this.The drone flies to your house,hovers,opens a hatch and the parcel drops out onto the floor.I wouldn’t fancy anything breakable to be delivered this way but then again,their drivers do tend to chuck stuff over the gate anyway so…
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That has been a worry on mind since the very first mention, some years ago. I only have a little voice and cannot shout as loud as Amazon and their cash-mountain.
To be fair, they’ll probably just drop it off long enough to take a photo of it on somebody elses doorstep…before scooping it up and delivering it to the nearest car boot sale like normal! 
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I wouldn’t like to call the CAA toothless, far from it. However, I do wonder what will happen when the first Amazon bird brings down a private UAV - and vice versa. In this part of the world there are a lot of ‘air-defence unit’ (plonkers with air rifles and bows) who will just see Amazon drones as just another target!
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Maybe toothless is a strong description. Having listened to a podcast about the death of Emiliano Sala a few years back, maybe “seriously under-funded and under-resourced” is a more accurate description. Shockingly so.
