Google Spinoff’s Drone Delivery Business First to Get FAA Approval
Google Spinoff’s Drone Delivery Business First to Get FAA Approval
•
Google offshoot becomes only drone firm approved
as an airline
•
Wing’s new status clears way for others seeking
drone commerce
By Alan Levin April 23, 2019, 6:00 AM PDT
An offshoot of Alphabet Inc.’s Google has become the
first drone operator to receive government approval as an airline, an important
step that gives it the legal authority to begin dropping products to actual
customers.
The subsidiary, Wing, now has the same certifications
that smaller airlines receive from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and
the Department of Transportation. It plans to begin routine deliveries of small
consumer items in two rural communities in Virginia within months, the company
said.
“It’s an exciting moment for us to have earned the FAA’s
approval to actually run a business with our technology,” Wing Chief Executive
Officer James Ryan Burgess said in an interview. He called it “pivotal” both
for his company and the drone industry in general.
Drone regulations still don’t permit most flights over
crowds and urban areas, limiting where Wing can operate. But the approvals
signed by the FAA on Friday and Monday give the company the ability to charge
for deliveries of clients’ goods in Virginia and apply for permission to expand
to other regions.
While scores of companies working in test programs have
gotten FAA waivers to perform demonstration flights or to make deliveries over
short distances, there has never been a drone company approved under the
regulations designed to ensure safety at traditional charter airlines or
smaller air-cargo haulers.
It required Wing to create extensive manuals, training
routines and a safety hierarchy -- just as any air carrier must do.
Companies receiving permission must also be majority
owned by U.S. citizens under long-standing restrictions imposed by the DOT.
Some drone companies have complained that the process was
too onerous. Many of the requirements that made sense for a charter airline --
like flight attendants and seat belts for the crew -- didn’t apply to them.
Burgess said that the process of applying to the FAA took
months and was “very rigorous and very thorough.”
Other drone companies applying for FAA approvals should
be able to move more quickly now that the agency and Wing have worked through
the issues of what rules should apply to drone operators and which ones should
not, Burgess said.
The FAA’s air-carrier certification was needed because
existing rules created strictly for drones don’t allow the kind of flights Wing
envisioned, he said.
According to regulations issued in 2016, for example,
drone operators are allowed to fly for hire, but have to do so within strict
rules prohibiting flights outside of a ground operator’s eyesight. Similarly,
the FAA has allowed automated flights over longer distances, but they are only
demonstrations and companies can’t accept payment.
In order for Wing to operate over longer ranges and
actually charge for the service, it needed to become a full-fledged air
carrier. The FAA confirmed the air-carrier certification was signed, but didn’t
offer additional comment.
Wing plans to begin deliveries in the Blacksburg and
Christiansburg areas of Virginia. The company has been conducting research at
nearby Virginia Tech’s Mid-Atlantic Aviation Partnership.
Unlike Amazon.com Inc.’s Prime Air, another would-be
drone delivery company, Wing will sell items from local merchants. Now that it
has gotten FAA approvals, it will begin finding business partners in the two
towns, Burgess said.
Wing’s drone, a hybrid between a helicopter and plane, is
able to lift off vertically and fly horizontally at high speeds. It carries packages
in its belly, lowering them to people’s yards with a tether while it hovers a
safe distance overhead.
The company also recently won approval for drone
deliveries from regulators in Australia, where it has conducted extensive
testing.
Because the idea of drones flying over people’s homes is
so new, the company also plans to conduct extensive outreach to local
government leaders and the public, Burgess added. Actual deliveries are
expected to start within several months.
The FAA’s approval demonstrates the rapid maturation of
drone technology, he said.
“It shows these devices can be value added in our
communities,” Burgess said. “They can be a faster, cleaner, less expensive way
to transport things while still adding to the safety of society.”
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