Amazons drones - seriously?

[Noitoen]

On the other end, they could always try this method. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/africa/8248056.stm

[Edwin Dirnbeck]

Why?

it's easy to assume it would work great if you wear the correct rose colored glasses. that way it wouldn't be possible to conceive that someone might shoot it down, since it seems that there's a good portion of the country that would love to shoot any sort of drone down, be it in texas, colorado, or wherever...

Why would an intelligent person look up in the sky and ''love'' to shoot something down? Edwin

[A.K. Boomer]

Wonder what an unauthorized vollyball net would do the roll-out?

I was thinking of those explosive nets that they use to capture birds and stuff, then the net could be dragged by one large rope into a dark room where the units could be disassembled and maybe their parts used for high performance RC craft,

I mean not that I would do anything like that - Im just saying, Do you think they will have serial #'s on everything to prevent this from happening? just curious...

[jkilroy]

This idea makes me think of two things

One, what goes up *must* come down, and it must come down somewhere

Two, Lawyers

[jdunmyer]

This scheme has progressed farther than most of us realize.

[TRX]

All these drones would have to give way to general aviation... an ultralight colliding with a drone of any size could be ugly.

What I'm trying to figure is, model aircraft aren't particularly fuel-efficient, and model helicopters are even worse. An electric quadcopter can lift its own weight for a little while, then the batteries are dead. And batteries are heavier than fuel, which limits payload...

Without VTOL, your delivery system is going to have to drop the package as it passes by, unless you want to take a chance of the wind blowing a parachuted package off into a busy street.

Did someone perfect a zero-point energy source while I wasn't paying attention? The numbers just aren't adding up for me.

[Mike Amick]

I think your right on about the power drain. As far as VTOL .. these things are the
the very essence of VTOL. I think the whole thing is a joke, but not an impossibility.

[lazlo]

Why would an intelligent person look up in the sky and ''love'' to shoot something down? Edwin

You don't have a location listed, but assuming you're not in the 'States: as part of the escalation of domestic espionage our government has become quote fond of, Federal agencies are starting to use military surveillance drones for warrantless surveillance in the 'States.

So some counties in Colorado and Texas have passed "open season" laws allowing citizens to "hunt" drones that are lingering over their property.

[A.K. Boomer]

Agreed - Li-Po's have totally changed the ball game of RC flight both for helicopters and planes but not to the degree needed for this to become practical...

[WhatTheFlux!]

So how much laser do I need to render one of these inoperable mid-flight? I'm not talking total incineration I want it to hit the ground for salvage purposes.

Problem I see... the NSA putting the screws to Amazon and making them mount little cameras or wireless sniffers on these critters. A fleet of drones with access to every nook and cranny of the United States under the guise of "commerce?" Some NSA engineer is furiously jerking off to the idea right now (your welcome, asshole. send me my cut -- you know where I live.)

[lazlo]

Although the drones would have two distinct advantages over trucks.One being line of sight transit and two being constant motion,no constant stops and starts once in the air.

Good point Darin, but UPS delivers those packages in parallel strings: to you and all your neighbors, whereas Bezos' quadcopters would have to do each delivery point to point.

In any case, there's not a quadcopter on Earth that can deliver a 5 pound package on a 20 mile round-trip (what Bezos claimed on 60 Minutes).
Like Steve says, unless there's some radical improvement in battery technology...

[lazlo]

Problem I see... the NSA putting the screws to Amazon and making them mount little cameras or wireless sniffers on these critters. A fleet of drones with access to every nook and cranny of the United States under the guise of "commerce?" Some NSA engineer is furiously jerking off to the idea right now (your welcome, asshole. send me my cut -- you know where I live.)

LOL, good point! That bears the question: what is the NSA doing with the exhaustive set of street-side photographs Google has taken of every square inch of North America? You know -- the raw images with everyone's faces and the street addresses and license plates not redacted. Shudder!

[wierdscience]

Agreed - Li-Po's have totally changed the ball game of RC flight both for helicopters and planes but not to the degree needed for this to become practical...

I wouldn't be so sure of that.What todays high performance acrobatic helios are capable of could put this well into the realm of possibility.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rn5rMt-LmDQ

Now imagine that same battery system,not doing acrobatics,but instead a nice lazy,limited to 1G,optimized computer controlled flight path.

[vpt]

The future will continue to come at you. It is just a matter to time before we have near "instant" package deliveries and personal flying crafts, and whatnot. Going to the moon for lunch will be fun someday.

[wierdscience]

LOL, good point! That bears the question: what is the NSA doing with the exhaustive set of street-side photographs Google has taken of every square inch of North America? You know -- the raw images with everyone's faces and the street addresses and license plates not redacted. Shudder!

NSA is the only government agency that listens to the people.