Private Enterprise Agility vs. Big Government Sluggishness

The first time a drone chews up a toddler, there will be hell to pay. Does Amazon really want that kind of liability? I'm guessing no.

All aircraft operate under VFR (visual flight rules) or IFR (instrument flight rules)
IFR means they are under the control of air traffic control through radar, transponders, communication, ect.
VFR means the pilot must, at the least, maintain a visual watch for other aircraft, ect.
If drones are to safely fly in shared airspace (from the ground up to thousands of feet high) they have to operate under the above flight rules. I doubt if a camera would suffice as a 'visual watch'.
I would think it would be very easy for terrorists to target aircraft of all sizes and do major damage to them. Fifty pounds of the right king of material into a jet engine or pilots windshield would be catastrophic. It wouldn't even be suicidal.

The popular slogan ITS HARD TO FLY LIKEA EAGLE WHEN YOU WORK FOR TURKEYS and the biggist turkey lives in the Whitehouse

The "progressives" enact regulations and hearings to stop measures they disagree with. They stop regulations and hearings to enact measures they agree with. Whether it's a drone, pipeline or wind turbines being considered, "due diligence" depends entirely on their opinion on the matter.

Thus pipelines are subject to paralysis by analysis and lawfare, while their pet wind turbine projects are exempted from the nuisance of having to demonstrate their safety &/or efficacy.

It's not that complicated - really. Remember, common sense is a superpower, though once a troll asked me to define it's meaning - of course that proved they didn't have any ..... well you know what I mean.

Why can't the people who work for Amazon or Microsoft in Seattle, or the people who work for Google or Facebook in California, understand that the president they so eagerly supported is a staunch advocate of central planning?

I can understand if they want such issues as gay rights or legalized pot or abortions. But they should be able to get that without voting for a glib marxist with a messiah complex.

The mind boggles.

I'm interested in the possibility of these things in hu*****.

You could stand by your truck,while the camera-carrying drone checks out the valley over the hill in front of you.

Provincial governments across Canada are probably scrambling to prevent this by legislation as we type.

Amazon is just the beginning. If drone delivery becomes normal (and if allowed it will become normal) then shortly the sky is going to be cluttered with drones. Really.
Also, there will be a lot of unionized federal U.S. Postal Service workers out of a job and mail delivery is one of the few services the U.S. government is actually authorized to provide to the nation in the Constitution.

I certainly wouldn't want a 5lb package + dead drone falling on me or my truck from 200 feet. This is a bad idea period.

2 things, one a gust of wind

two, if they become normal it will be hard to separate the good from the bad. Terrorists would just need to fly one so a passenger jet engine ingest one of them on take off.

In commemoration of George Washington's 283rd birthday we bring you "The Crossing" an excellent rendition of Washington's crossing of the Delaware River on Christmas 1776.

http://commoncts.blogspot.com/2015/02/happy-birthday-george-washington.html

Robert, I don't understand your point. How is this story about hypocrisy or contradiction among "progressives"? Are aerial drones supposed to be a progressive cause? Is Amazon? Or are you just instinctly against anything that the Obama administration does?

Seriously, what would you do differently? Instantly green-light Amazon's (or any private enterprise's) request to fly commercial drones in any public airspace without any public oversight? I'm honestly asking.

At a guess autonomous vehicles will be doing most of the Amazon deliveries, on the ground, after midnight. At about the speed of a mobility scooter. But there will be a lot of them and they'll be cheap.

The opportunity for abuse is to great. I don't want shit flying over my property. Can these things be outfitted with cameras? ...if so, f**K you.

Drones are already used to check power cables autonomously, outside of the operator's line of sight.
I think that Amazon (and others) should be allowed to embrace this technology, as the potential spin-offs are huge.

Also, it will open up a new rural hobby: Skeet shooting for random prizes. Right there, that fixes the private property aspect of the issue, but no doubt Amazon will go whining to the state for protection, (like many who want to ban this kind of thing) instead of simply understanding the cost of doing business.

Using drones for delivery is just dumb. Not only do you have the safety issues, and the privacy issues, and the issues of delivery to multi-unit buildings, but one thing that nobody else here has mentioned is energy. These drones aren't dirigibles. They remain aloft by the constant expenditure of energy to spin their little helicopter rotors. Very expensive power, too, since it's stored in lithium batteries. Their range isn't going to be that great, so packages would have to be trucked to a local drone base, and transferred to the drones. Then the drones fly out loaded, and fly back empty, for their next load (and probably a set of fresh batteries). Those brown trucks go from door, to door, to door all day long on a cheap tank of Diesel fuel.

If you really want to change the delivery paradigm, set up a freight service structured like Uber, essentially privateers who get their loads from a Web site. Call it "Hoober", for sake of argument. I'm going to Calgary this afternoon. I go on the Hoober site, see that Dave in Beiseker has a 20 lb. box that has to go to NW Calgary. I send Dave an e-mail, tell him I'm going right by there, and for five bucks, I'll haul his package. He agrees, done deal. Adds 10 minutes to my trip, negligible extra fuel, and five dollars in my jeans. Needless to say, such a service would have to have provisions to deal with no load, no pay, delivery impossible situations, and some sort of way of ensuring bona fides. Uber seems to handle that OK.