this post was submitted on 04 Nov 2023
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778
Amazon's drone delivery program is the joke it always sounded like. (news.yahoo.com)
submitted 2 years ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
231 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Only one item can be delivered at a time. It can’t weigh more than 5 pounds. It can’t be too big. It can’t be something breakable, since the drone drops it from 12 feet. The drones can’t fly when it is too hot or too windy or too rainy.

You need to be home to put out the landing target and to make sure that a porch pirate doesn’t make off with your item or that it doesn’t roll into the street (which happened once to Lord and Silverman). But your car can’t be in the driveway. Letting the drone land in the backyard would avoid some of these problems, but not if there are trees.

Amazon has also warned customers that drone delivery is unavailable during periods of high demand for drone delivery.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 years ago (4 children)

Maybe if they used bigger craft with larger payload capacity and longer range

[–] [email protected] 27 points 2 years ago (1 children)

And maybe that craft could have wheels instead of rotors to mitigate the rain/wind problems... i think we might be on to something here!

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Like a Chinook!?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Haha, now I am picturing a huge Chinook delivering the smallest package of essentially bullshit to my door.

Yeah, I am totally behind that idea.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

Or one of the ch54 skycranes delivering a shipping container of amazon returns to the auction winners.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

The problem is that the bigger and heavier the craft the higher it's minimum drop height is going to be because it's more dangerous and needs more clearance.

Obviously it also becomes much more costly to run.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Put a little parachute on the package to soften the fall! /s

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

That made me laugh... I was imagining a small parachute hooked up to a plasma TV 😲

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

The UK drone delivery does that

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

not even necessary a bigger capacity I mean it being just able to bring me like a bag of chips or something I forgot for dinner would be great

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

While people will undoubtedly take the piss, for a number of reasons, it's less energy expenditure / lower footprint than you getting in your car/truck and going to the store and getting them yourself.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago

Would it be less energy expenditure than a delivery van making multiple stops on its way to deliver you your bag of chips?