A delivery flight tasked from 40km away!. The drone was summoned by the Major of Chiba City, Toshihito Kumagai, via a cell phone app. The Sora Raku drone from Japanese company Rakuten flew from their Crimson House headquarters to Inage Kahin Park Pool.

This delivery has put Amazon’s recent efforts into the spotlight again. Perhaps to distract, they have pulled out a set of ridiculous patents. Blimps and bow and arrows for instance. Filing a Patent is much easier than doing the work.

https://youtu.be/S96WkS6BMao

Delivery drones for Amazon present a fabulous Christmas marketing tool. They also suck the air out of the room for all the other entrants in the market that are trying harder.

I think the Sora Raku Drone is unique at the moment amongst delivery drones in having a parachute. Made by Israeli Company ParaZero. Surely a must have rather than nice to have.

LTE for command and control (C2) is more common. It would not work in this corner of Africa though!

Delivery drones are coming in one shape or another Sora Raku is a great effort. I don’t think 2017 will be the year of widespread adoption, despite what other pundits are saying.

The technology is almost there but the value is not. Do you really need up to 2kg of stuff that quickly?

I do see a need for an entire truckload of beer, though.

In search and rescue, humanitarian-type efforts I see a use case. Time is life and perhaps if the weather is really awful and normal road and rail links cut, there might only be manned helicopters. There can be only so many helicopters available to planners. Their time would be much better spent rescuing people.