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The previous two years were not easy for Amazon's innovative approach toward delivery. In fact, the company failed more than eight times in its attempts to make drone package delivery possible. Several technical issues and complications significantly delayed the launch of the company's innovative delivery option. It took its engineers a long time to resolve them. The new targeted year to unveil drone delivery is 2024, but Amazon will need to obtain official FAA approval to manage on time.
In July 2021, an FAA inspector was sent to investigate drone crashes at Amazon's testing site in Pendleton, Oregon. Amazon informed the inspector, however, that the FAA was not required, as the company had already conducted its own crash investigation. During the course of the inspectors' investigation, Amazon removed drone wreckage on at least two occasions before the FAA could investigate.
When FAA inspector Jim Holden asked to see the motor and propeller from a drone that fell 120 feet, Amazon engineers had already removed them for their own investigation. The same happened two months earlier when Amazon collected wreckage from a crashed drone with a damaged propeller.
According to an FAA report, the package delivery drone developed by Amazon weighs around 85 pounds. Six electric motors and propellers are mounted on its hexagonal wing design, making it an autonomous drone. While traveling between locations, delivery drones will only fly during daylight hours and at an altitude of approximately 400 feet, as the company outlines.
In recent months, Amazon's drone delivery practices have not gone beyond Taylor Ranch Road in Lockeford, where direct observational access is provided from its building in the city. A drone delivery service seems like a futuristic dream, and it appears that it will remain so for a while.
