Washington (AFP)
Wing, a subsidiary of Alphabet (Google), became this week the first company to deliver drones in the United States, in the small town of Christiansburg, which was chosen for this first full-size American test.
What can the 22,000 inhabitants of this rural Virginia town on the East Coast get delivered? Products via FedEx, drugs sold by the Walgreens pharmacy and chocolates and other treats from a local business.
Wing, which is already operating in two Australian cities and Helsinki, Finland, said in a statement that the first deliveries were made Friday afternoon in Christiansburg, "paving the way for the country's most advanced UAV delivery service. ".
One family ordered pills, paracetamol, facial tissues and bottles of water from the pharmacy via the Wing app, according to the company.
An elderly gentleman ordered a birthday present for his wife. The drone provided the "last mile" of a FedEx delivery, for which the couple had previously accepted the air distribution option.
The yellow and white drones are loaded with their parcels in a local center called "nest", where Wing employees can place up to 1.3 kg of products, deliverable within a radius of 10 km.
They do not land in the customer's garden; they stop at a good height and lower their cargo by a rope.
Multiple companies want to launch similar services, including Amazon, UPS and Uber Eats. But it was Wing who got the first license from the US Federal Aviation Agency (FAA), which allows Wing pilots to control multiple drones at the same time.
© 2019 AFP