Amazon Is Getting Serious About Drones
Amazon wants to start flying their drones and deliver products to its customers. Today, the company formally requested a premission from Federal Aviation Administration to allow the use of drones for commercial purposes. In the request, Amazon is seeking for an exemption from FAA rules, saying that th U.S. Congress directed the FAA "to safely accelerate the integration of civil unmanned aircraft systems into the national airspace system" and under Section 333 of that law, gave the FAA power to grant innovators "expedited operational authorization' to do so."
Amazon believes that by 2015, their Prime Air drones, which can fly up to 50mph, will be ready to deliver products to customers within 30 minutes.
The company claims to have made developments in its Prime Air program by testing their drones inside their research and development lab in Seattle. Over the last five months the Prime Air drones have undergone agility, flight duration, redundancy and sense-and-avoid tests.
Amazon is also promising to self-impose much stronger safety measures than those currently required by the FAA for hobbyists flying their small remotely-controlled aircrafts.