Why drone deliveries may be tough in western North Carolina…

Whoo-hoooie! Nailed another’n! PVP Online

Sport hunting taken to new, um, heights, I suppose…

This seems like a great idea, to me, and I hope the FAA will consider rules that make drone deliveries practical or at least legal. What a world it will be with thousands of tiny quad-copters zipping to and fro delivering packages. Some of the photographic systems already available on these copters are fantastic and only stand to improve as gimbals become more compact, efficient, and attainable.

Clearly, there must be control over airspace, but given the precision of GPS, the pervasiveness of cellular coverage, and potentials for standardized vehicle to vehicle networking, there is no reason that aircraft can’t negotiate clear flight paths. Call me tech-faithful if you must, but I won’t be the least bit surprised to learn that the recent train derailment in New York occurred on a section that unions have somehow managed to restrict to “human control only.” Since humans are clearly so much more reliable than electronics. Every year, it seems, we hear of another train crash where the electronic systems have set off alarm after alarm to alert the human operator that it was time to reduce speed, only to hurtle into another train or leave the tracks. The human should be the last backup, given the extensive automation of rail  traffic.

It will be interesting to see how Bezos’ five year claim pans out… Will we see drones buzzing about dropping off the iPhone 8 for Christmas 2018?