Fairground
In USA I can imagine some less responsible people who possess guns will think it a good sport to treat this like sitting ducks at the fairground: "Let's see what goodies we can shoot down today."
Amazon has outlined a futuristic plan that would give drones their own 200-foot-thick piece of sky to zoom around in – and deliver packages in super-fast times. Amazon Prime Air co-founder Gur Kimchi outlined the plan in a keynote at the Unmanned Aerial Systems Traffic Management (UTM) Convention in Silicon Valley on Tuesday …
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/07/30/man_arrested_shooting_camera_drone/
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Probably the way forward for Amazon is to buy or rent the corridor of air they want to use for their deliveries, in the same way that the London Underground had to compensate land-owners for tunnelling under their properties when building the Victoria (and other, subsequent) tube lines.
Other interested parties would either enter the "air real estate" market themselves, or rent it from Amazon. Lawyers will love it: stipulating how many drones per hour can be flown through the space, size of drone, hours of operation, etc.
There is the risk that some land-owners will say "not at any cost", but no doubt there will be softeners added e.g., free deliveries and collections for allowing access to your space.
Well perhaps DHL, Yodel at al would also like special lanes on our roads so they can operate automated vans for their convenience and profit? That'd be OK according to Amazon's logic, the rest of us can manage with the gutter. What an over-inflated sense of their own importance these "tech" companies have.
OI!
Where am I supposed to fly my aerobatic kite, Mr Deliverydrone Fucktard? Your multirotor flying brownboxen are in my airspace according to your picture.
Show me the plan view of this, er, plan on a real map of, say, Long Island (to pick at random) before you start layer-caking the atmosphere for tat-delivery.
Or run the risk of encountering some high-speed duraluminum wrapped with blue plastic sheet.
give drones their own 200-foot-thick piece of sky to zoom around in
Sounds like a sensible idea, as long as we're not standing underneath it when the inevitable fuckup happens[1]........ah........hang on.......
[1] My money's on some security loophole, attempted pwnage and a large helping of oops on both ends.
... so long as they don't hit ME. The operator of any aircraft has an absolute responsibility to avoid conflict with other aircraft. In class G airspace and VFR, that means you need to be able to see and avoid other things in the air - regardless of what gadgets they may or may not be carrying. I pass through Amazon's proposed "no fly zone" at least twice every time I fly a paraglider cross country. If their drones can't spot me and avoid me, they're not legal to fly. End of.
Except I can see the CAA making an exception before long on the basis of sackloads of cash, given that there are maybe a thousand active XC paragliders in the UK, and Amazon would probably put a thousand drones up over, say, Manchester alone. Recreational users who've been quietly obeying the law for a hundred years or more will have little sway against the power of the corporates.
OK, so these delivery drones are restricted to between between 200 & 400 feet. How does my fragile delivery cover the last 200 feet to the ground? Plummet and smash when it hits? Parachute down, to be blown off course and get nicked? Reeled down on a line that can get tangled in trees or aerials? Retro rockets?
"Most birds fly below 500 feet except during migration"...
Won't be a problem after all the birdchoppers are done with them.
With Cameroon &co. mopping up tons of money with their ever-increasing windfarms, all that'll be left of the bird population is the mop up.
What on earth is so bl33ding important that it needs to be delivered, essentially unattended, within 30 minutes? If it's medication or legal documents, it had better be in human hands (or at least human control) the whole time.
This "in the air, everywhere" crap has to stop. Money-grubbing clowns.
Votes, Trev. Votes. If there's more of them than there are of you, they win.
Canada's a big country. Lots of places to find people who prefer to live the way I want to live. And if Canada goes squirrely, there's plenty of other countries. Worst case, I can fight for my right to live as I want.
Tyranny of the majority is a real problem in democracy. Fortunately, in this instance, it seems that the majority of people agree with me. They'd rather not have to brave rush hour and plow through crowded stores if it can be avoided.
Believe it or not - holy shit, batman! - most people aren't a magical combination of masochist and extrovert!
Imagine that.