by David M. Sykes, Vice Chair, The Quiet Coalition
Watch out for this on the roof of your local strip mall: Google’s Alphabet drone-delivery division, called Wing is now conducting pilot drone-delivery programs in the U.S. They’ve already done so in Australia and elsewhere (where the program was roundly criticized as noisy and intrusive). But negative feedback elsewhere isn’t stopping them, and the Federal Aviation Administration–a division of the all-powerful Department to Transportation, presided over by Senate Leader Mitch McConnell’s wife–has authorized a range of pilot programs across the U.S. to explore driverless drone deliveries.
Here’s a video of the Wing delivery drone in action:
See those 16 or 17 rotors? Thats four times the number of rotors you’d find on a hobbyist drone at your local park. That translates to four times the amount of noise! Who’s watching out for this?
We’ve encouraged the Congressional Quiet Skies Caucus to take a look at this emerging problem. Their only prior work was on airport noise from commercial jet aircraft—an area where they seem to have made some progress, though it hasn’t translated into improvements yet for neighborhoods adjacent to airports across the country.
Now they need to get focused on this drone delivery problem. Because in the very near future, when you pull into Whole Foods or CVS, there’s a distinct possibility that their roofs will be noisy mini-airports for the delivery of lattes, pizzas, veggies, shampoo and prescription drugs to your neighbors. So you’ll get the noise where you’re shopping and in your neighbors’ yards.
Here comes the next chapter in Big Tech’s vision of America’s future: driverless drone delivery—and it’s just invaded America’s shores after highly-criticized pilot programs elsewhere.
