Amazon Lifts Off

Thirteen minutes after being ordered, the package arrived safely at its destination. The drone flew at a height of 122m (400ft), from the Cambridge fulfilment centre to the customer’s house. The payload of the electronically powered drone is 2.7kg (5lbs), and they can fly completely autonomously, using GPS as well as sense and avoid technology to guide it past ground and air obstacles.

Amazon’s aim for Prime Air is that all orders made with this service are delivered within thirty minutes. In the coming months the trial will be expanded to dozens of customers living close to the warehouse, while there are Prime Air development centres in the US, UK, Israel and Australia.

On its website, Amazon has repeated that safety is its “top priority” as drones increasingly come under the spotlight; the crew of a passenger jet reporting the sight of a football-sized drone flying as close as 20m to it, while both were at an altitude of 11,000ft, only narrowly avoiding collision. At present, Amazon is only permitted to operate during daylight hours, during periods of low winds and high visibility.

Whether this will truly be an industry game-changer is yet to be seen, but it looks like drone delivery is clearly becoming a reality, with 7-11 conducting the first delivery earlier this year.