The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has finally approved a drone delivery service, but it’s not Amazon Prime Air.
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A NASA Langley Research Center Cirrus SR-22 fixed wing, single engine airplane delivered the supplies from Tazewell County Airport to Lonesome Pine Airport in Wise in a meticulously choreographed display of current unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV’s) technology, with the packages transferred to six-rotor UAV’s – commonly known as drones – to ferry the medical supplies to the nearby fairgrounds.
The drone, which weighs only about 10 pounds, will hover over a horse ring at the fairgrounds and lower medical supplies.
Stan Brock, founder of Remote Area Medical, which has held hundreds of health clinics around the world, says drones could be invaluable after catastrophic events including major earthquakes.
Other companies have tried drone drug deliveries outside the US, such as DHL in Germany. The drone transported auto parts between the Auckland suburbs of Penrose and Mt Wellington, a 1.9km journey which took around five minutes.
Friday NASA officials, the governor of Virginia, and RAM clinic organizers said they are hopeful for the future of drones both in Virginia and in the U.S.
Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe visited the RAM clinic to see the drone delivery and volunteer with his wife and two sons. Flirtey co-founders Tom Bass and Matt Sweeny, McAuliffe, Wise County Clerk of Circuit Court Jack Kennedy, and Virginia Secretary of Technology Karen Jackson witnessed the groundbreaking flights.
“This experiment was sanctioned by the FAA and there are a lot of real talented and knowledgeable people involved”, Brock said. “People know we need this”, Cox said.
“I think that today is a really important milestone and a precedent”, Matthew Sweeny, CEO OF Flirtey, the company that provided the drones Friday said.
“As clinical director of the Health Wagon, this is so exciting”. Health care professionals received the packages, then distributed the medications to the appropriate patients.
“The utility of us being able to get a medication out to a patient in these rural mountainous areas would just be tremendous, and it would save lives”.
Tracking the medical drone being tested out in rural Virginia. A pilot helped the drone take off and land, but it was operated mainly from the ground. “Here in the United States, we need to help our own”, she said.
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“Yeah they do”, said Shirley.
