Australia-based drone delivery company Flirtey has successfully made its first test deliveries in the US after a similar recent trial in New Zealand.
A Flirtey drone made three short trips carrying medicines weighing 4.5 kg in total about one mile from a regional airport to a remote rural health clinic in Wise County, West Virginia.
The US Federal Aviation Administration, which regulates aviation, granted the company and its partners, including NASA, special permission for the test flights last Friday.
Matt Sweeny, the start-up company’s founder, told US media: “It was absolutely a Kitty Hawk moment.” That was the name of the town where the Wright Brothers made the first-ever successful aircraft flights in 1903.
He added: “Proving that unmanned aircraft can deliver lifesaving medicines is an important step toward a future where unmanned aircraft make routine autonomous deliveries of your everyday purchases.”
However, drone deliveries remain a long way off in the US, despite Amazon’s ambitions for ‘Prime Air’ deliveries within the next few years. The FAA is working on new regulations for commercial drone operations but they are currently banned from flights outside the sight of the drone operator, within cities or above people.
Flirtey recently made its first commercial flight with a delivery in Auckland, New Zealand, for Fastway Couriers. The company flew a small shipment of automotive parts between two districts of New Zealand’s largest city.
Elsewhere, DHL successfully used a drone for several months of trial deliveries to a German island last autumn, Swiss Post and partners are testing drone operations this summer, and La Poste has tested the technology at a special site in southern France.
