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Wing wins FAA go-ahead for drone delivery service

Wing drone delivery
Wing’s drone makes a delivery. (Wing Photo)

Alphabet’s Wing venture has stolen a march on Amazon’s plans for drone domination by winning air carrier certification from the Federal Aviation Administration.

“Air Carrier Certification means that we can begin a commercial service delivering goods from local businesses to homes in the United States,” Wing said today in a Medium post celebrating the milestone.

Wing was spun out last year from Alphabet’s X tech incubator (formerly known as Google X), and has been taking part in an FAA-backed pilot program to push the envelope for drone operations in Southwest Virginia.

The company has also conducted a test program in Australia that involved more than 3,000 drone deliveries to doorsteps, backyards and driveways. In all, Wing’s drones have flown more than 70,000 test flights, and is starting up delivery operations in Finland.

Wing said the data submitted to the FAA for certification showed that “a delivery by wing carries a lower risk to pedestrians than the same trip made by car.”

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Google Wing Marketplace faces a tough climb

Image: Project Wing drone
Members of the Project Wing team test flight and delivery in California. (Credit: Project Wing / X)

You don’t hear as much about Google’s (now Alphabet X’s) Project Wing as you do about Amazon’s Prime Air drones, but the flying-delivery project is still aiming to go commercial.

That’s the word from The Wall Street Journal, which delves into the trials and tribulations of Project Wing in a report published this week.

X is reportedly planning to create an online exchange called Wing Marketplace, which would let customers order food and other goods and have them delivered within minutes via drone for a $6 fee.

The inside look at Wing Marketplace is based on interviews with former X employees, and none of the companies involved was willing to comment.

Among the retailers who are said to have been contacted: Whole Foods Market, Domino’s Pizza and Starbucks. Starbucks declined to sign on, reportedly because of concerns over “X’s control of the user experience.”

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Project Wing drones get boost from White House

Image: Project Wing drone
Members of the Project Wing team test automated flight in California. (Credit: Project Wing / X)

The White House says it’s taking steps to speed up the development of civil and commercial applications for drones – including the experimental deployment of Google’s Project Wing, a delivery service that could rival what Amazon has in mind.

Today’s announcement comes a week after Amazon indicated that it would be shifting the focus of its own drone delivery tests from the United States to Britain. Amazon Prime Air may benefit indirectly from the Project Wing experiment as well – but if there is any benefit, Project Wing will get it first.

The Project Wing study is just one of more than a dozen public-private initiatives announced today to coincide with a workshop on drones and the future of aviation, organized by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Another initiative opens the way for Bloodworks Northwest to deliver blood medicine and medical products to remote communities in the San Juan Islands via drones.

The White House said the National Science Foundation would set aside $35 million in funding over the next five years for research into how drones, also known as unmanned aircraft systems, can be used to inspect infrastructure and farm fields, monitor the weather and respond to disasters.

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