Winging it

AT THE end of 2013, Amazon made quite a media splash when it revealed that it had been testing the use of small drones to deliver packages. The company is betting that the airborne marvels will eventually be able to transport parcels to customers within a ten-mile radius of the vast network of warehouses that it runs. But it is not the only tech giant with its eyes on the sky. On August 28th Google announced that its secretive "Google X" arm, which works on bold and risky long-term projects, has also developed a prototype delivery drone, as part of an initiative dubbed Project Wing.

Google has already shown with its driverless-car initiative, which was also hatched in Google X, that it is willing to promote ambitious new ideas, or “moonshots” in Google-speak, in the field of transport. And it is already pushing into the business of delivering things to people’s homes with its Google Shopping Express service, which is now running in several American cities. So it is hardly surprising that the company is following Amazon’s lead when it comes to dabbling with drones that can carry goods.

Google is not expecting them to take off immediately as a commercial proposition. It thinks it will be years before fleets of its drones are buzzing back and forth. The biggest hurdle will be persuading regulators that drones are safe to use for such a task. In June America’s Federal Aviation Administration approved the first commercial drone flight over land, but it has so far refused to sanction broader use of the technology because of worries about public safety and privacy.

Such concerns have not stopped Google from experimenting with a small prototype that has a single wing and four propellers. The company ran a test in Australia, where rules on drone use are more relaxed than in America, in which its prototypes delivered supplies to remote farms. A video of the drones in action can be seen below.

The contraptions consist of a single wing about five feet (1.5 metres) long, which points skywards for takeoff and then rotates to a horizontal position as it speeds away. In effect, it takes off and lands like a helicopter, but flies like a plane. Google’s engineers say that this means it can deliver goods faster than helicopter-like quadcopter drones.

They are also keen to point out that the drones could have all sorts of uses. Fleets of them could, for instance, be used to deliver supplies such as medicines during emergencies and natural disasters. They may also turn out to be more environmentally-friendly and safer than road transport, as they are able to avoid congestion on the ground by flying in the sky.

Although they undoubtedly have huge potential, it will still take a great deal of effort to convince regulators to give a green light to the widespread commercial use of drones. Google’s formidable lobbying machine will no doubt be working overtime to ensure they get off the ground.