ExecutiveGov reports that the Federal Aviation Administration is asking for feedback from UAS industry members “on requests by four companies to fly uncrewed aerial vehicles beyond visual line-of-sight.” Aerial data acquisition services provider Phoenix Air Unmanned, UAS technology developer uAvionix and autonomous delivery companies UPS Flight Forward and Zipline “have sought permission to conduct BVLOS drone operations at or below 400 feet, the FAA said Tuesday.”
Full Story (ExecutiveGov)
Tag: Delivery
United Airlines Puts Down Deposit on Archer Aviation eVTOLs
The Wall Street Journal reports that United Airlines has made the first actual cash commitment to an eVTOL company, giving Archer Aviation $10 million for 100 electric aircraft intended to operate as taxis. The industry is still awaiting Federal Aviation Administration movement on things like pilot requirements and how the planes would be worked into the airspace.
Full Story (The Wall Street Journal)
Boeing Shifts 787 Focus to Delivery, Production Pace
Aviation Week reports that The Boeing Company is shifting its 787 Dreamliner focus “to wiping out a 120-airframe stored backlog while steadily increasing production from the current rate of about one per month.”
Full Story (Aviation Week)
Zipline, MultiCare to Begin UAV Delivery of Medical Supplies in Tacoma, WA in 2024
CNET News reports that UAVs “will begin ferrying medical supplies to addresses” in Tacoma, WA beginning in 2024. Although the initiative “still requires regulatory approval for details of the flight operations,” the two companies behind the project – Zipline and MultiCare – “said the service will whisk lab samples, medicines, and test kits among Multicare’s local facilities.” CNET News says the Tacoma project “marks the latest use of drones to speed up deliveries” of much-needed goods, “which can be slowed by increasingly congested roads.”
Full Story (CNET News)
FAA Approves Zipline’s Drone-Delivery Service
BNN Bloomberg (CAN) reports that “Zipline International Inc., which already is making deliveries with companies such as Walmart Inc., said Tuesday that the Federal Aviation Administration certification would allow it to expand by shipping [health-care] products from its North Carolina headquarters.” Zipline’s drones do not fly like typical drones but fly “more like a traditional plane and [are] capable of traveling longer distances.” The company has “made more than 300,000 commercial deliveries, many of them medical supply drops in Africa.”
Full Story (BNN Bloomberg)
Zipline Will Use Drones to Deliver Medicine to Remote Japanese Islands
CNET News reports that drone company Zipline will “begin delivering prescription drugs and other medical supplies in May to hospitals in Japan’s hard-to-reach Goto Islands.” Toyota Tsusho, which “invested in Zipline in 2018, will run the operation.” Zipline and Toyota Tsusho “said the service will cut delivery times to 30 minutes from several hours.” Test flights “are already underway.” Zipline said it plans to expand the service to several islands in time, with the ability to handle 250 deliveries a day “to thousands of facilities and homes within the service area.
Full Story (CNET News)
FedEx Express, Elroy Air to Evaluate Uncrewed VTOL for Middle-Mile Cargo Delivery
Aviation Today reports that FedEx Express “has a new partnership agreement with Elroy Air aimed at flight-testing their autonomous vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) air cargo system for middle-mile logistics operations by 2023.” FedEx Express is to test Elroy Air’s Chaparral VTOL aircraft’s “ability to fly shipments between its various sortation facilities.”
Full Story (Aviation Today)
Volansi VOLY 10 Completes Fully Autonomous UAV Delivery
Aviation Today reports that Volansi’s Voly 10 UAV “completed the first-ever completely autonomous maritime drone delivery demonstration with the Navy and Coast Guard on July 18 near Key West, Florida.” The VOLY 10 had a “5-pound payload and completed a 15 nautical mile trip from a Navy ship to the Coast Guard Cutter William Trump and back to the naval ship. The drone did not land on the cutter to simulate a situation where a landing was impossible.”
Full Story (Aviation Today)