Drone delivery is here! UPS has actually done a couple of consumer deliveries for CVS using a drone.

Per Tech Crunch, “UPS is rolling along with its drone delivery program, working with partner CVS Pharmacy to deliver prescription drugs to customer doorsteps via its newly deployed commercial drones. UPS delivered medications to two paying customers on November 1 using the M2 drone system that the logistics company developed in partnership with Matternet.” Also, “For these early deliveries, drones were loaded with prescriptions filled by pharmacists at a CVS location in Cary, NC. Once a UPS employee loaded the cargo onto the drones, they flew autonomously from the store location to nearby customer homes, dropping off the packages from a hover height of around 20 feet above these locations. One of the customers has mobility challenges that would make travel to a CVS store for prescription pickup difficult, UPS points out.”

Hmm, this sounds like a good opportunity to get some free drugs to me. Just wait for the drone to drop it’s delivery and snatch it before the person who it is being delivered to gets it. And how about the noise? Most drones are very noisy, won’t this cause more headaches than it is worth? And what about the idiots running around with a gun, they might shoot it down because they think that the drone is spying on them?

I say this idea is dead on stupid and not well thought out. Just because you can do something does not mean that it is a good idea.

By the way from ZD Net, “The drone hovered about 20 feet over the properties and slowly lowered the packages by a cable and a winch to the ground.” I bet you that the cable will get caught up on a tree or a street light or even a flag pole and then the drone will be in big trouble.

The idea of commercial deliveries by drone is just stupid, at least the ones to the general public. Maybe not the ones from a hospital to a lab, this makes more sense.

My big problem is that all this supposed commercial drone delivery garbage is causing those who fly drones for a hobby nothing but trouble. We are now restricted to fly 400 feet and below. And I can not see these autonomous drones avoiding birds and things like flags flapping in the breeze very well without human intervention.

So enough with the drone delivery idea and leave us hobby fliers alone!

That is my opinion- Jumpin Jersey Mike