A month after Amazon announced its plans to bring drone deliveries to Lockeford, California, the company says it will also offer drone deliveries at Texas A&M in College Station, Texas. Amazon believes it will get FAA approval to begin operations by the end of the year. Amazon's UAVs will be able to carry up to 5 pounds at up to 50 miles per hour. So to catch you up, Amazon which got coverage from 60 Minutes for their drone delivery in December 2013, now has two announcements for service to begin this year once it gets approval.
TechCrunch notes just in Texas, Amazon is somewhat late to the game. In March Israel's Flytex began a drone delivery tests in the Dallas suburb of Granbury and Wing started service in Frisco and Little Elm, Texas in April, where it has been delivering pharmaceuticals and other small packages.
Wing Still Flying Higher
Speaking of Wing, the company showed off new prototypes Thursday that can handle a wider variety of packages. Right now its drone can carry up to 2.5 pounds and it uses the same drone no matter how small he package.
The largest of the new prototypes would be able to carry up to seven pounds, increasing the types of deliveries Wing could do. But they also showed off a drone able to carry just over a half a pound, making it more efficient for small things like prescriptions. Wing says ideally the packages should be around 25% of the mass of the plane.
Wing says it has completed more than 250,000 deliveries across Australia, Finland and the US.
Meanwhile for really heavy drone deliveries, the Verge notes that Elroy Air is working on a drone that can carry up to 500 pounds of cargo with a range of 300 miles. Houston's Bristow Group (which mainly does helicopter service for the energy industry and search and rescue, has signed a letter of intent to buy 100 of the planes for use in Texas, Louisiana, Alabama and Arkansas.