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Amazon Releases New Footage of What Appears to Be a Massive Delivery Drone
It looks like it can deliver a freaking Hellfire missile
I'm not surprised that Amazon is pressing ahead with their drone delivery initiative, and I even think they stand a chance of winning the regulatory approval they seek. I was not surprised when they released another video this weekend depicting their drone delivery vision. But I was surprised at how freaking huge the thing is! First off, take a look at the video and watch out for scale-spotting moments:
It's not obvious at a glance, but compared to the rinky-dink drone Amazon showed in their first video, just two years ago, the new Prime Air drone prototype is enormous. While the hero shot below doesn't provide any scale…
Enter a caption (optional)…in the video we see it dropping off a shoebox:
Enter a caption (optional)For scale's sake, here's the drone hovering above the shoebox:
Enter a caption (optional)To be clear, in the photo above the drone is not closer to the camera lens, it is directly above the box it just dropped off. Even accounting for the fact that these are "size 3" shoes, according to the video narrator, that drone's got to be at least a meter* square, no? Call me paranoid, but I don't want delivery drones that are large enough to support an M60 machinegun, should one happen to be bolted on.
Of course, it's also possible that the shoebox is simply a tiny mock-up for demonstration's sake. But I'm looking at that fencepost in the background and thinking it's accurate.
Do you all think this will become a reality, or is it wishful thinking on Bezos' part? I think that if anyone has the power to make delivery drones mainstream, it's a major retailer like Amazon. And, heads up—Walmart is looking into them too.
*(I went with meters rather than feet in case I'm way off. That way I can claim American ignorance and hide behind our unfamiliarity with the metric system.)
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I think the important bit of the video is the mention of different kinds of drones for different areas. For example, small packages could use a much smaller drone, while a new kitchenaid mixer gets delivered by something the size of a car (maybe a zeppelin?). Being very new, their test model is of a scale that produces the most utility for testing.
Side note: The "video narrator" is none other than the infamous Jeremy Clarkson, presenter of Top Gear, fired by the BBC for punching a producer in the face, and who moved his show to Amazon Prime. Now either he has just been put to work to try and justify the 160 million dollars they paid for his show, or this could be the beginning of a series of advertising stunts for Prime and the show. Whatever happens, I hope for everyone's sake he has NOT been involved in the design of the drone, as his previous attempts at making, well, anything led to the motto of his show:
Ambitious, but rubbish !