First beer delivery by drone, but FAA gives cease and desist

[carpedaym]

"Ice fishermen on Lake Waconia in Minnesota were pleasantly surprised when a Wisconsin brewery, Lakemaid, flew a twelve-pack of their frothy suds over the icy wastes to their warm fishing cabins using a hefty, remote-controlled quadcopter. It was a match made in zero-degree weather: the brewery took orders and flew their drones out to the fishermen who, in turn, didn’t have to trudge to the shore for liquid refreshment. The FAA, however, didn’t find the arrangement so appealing.

"According to FAA rules, you cannot fly a drone for commercial purposes or above 400 feet in the United States. Therefore a robot flying a sixer over to some thirsty pescatarians is right out. One phone call from the FAA shut down the entire operation and, in turn, set off an Internet firestorm. But the company, whose logo is a fulsome lake maiden with a slippery tail, will not be grounded for long."

Continues... http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/04/the-faa-shuts-down-beer-delivery-drone/

and a video:

 

[Not For Horses]

I fly a drone commercially. Flew it this morning actually.
You are allowed to fly drones commercially in Australia if you are licensed to do so.
The 400 feet AGL applies here too for the most part.
Haven't managed to use it for beer related purposes yet though.

 

[Florian]

That's a fairly big drone if it can carry a 12 pack of beer.

My drones can just carry a small HD camera each and that's about it.

What are you flying, NFH, and what for? If you're allowed/willing to talk about it, that is.

 

[Airgead]

My drones can just carry a small HD camera each and that's about it.

That's an expensive way of perving in your neighbor's windows...

 

[Not For Horses]

I'm flying a Mavinci Sirius Pro which is a fixed-wing plane with on-board RTK GPS. First of its kind in Australia.
We use it for aerial photography and 3D terrain mapping.
Nothing sinister I assure you!

 

[Funk then Funk1]

nothing sinister...mmm, you don't work for nearmap do you? The the drug pushers of aerial photography, suck you in with the free taster bags then once your hooked they start racking in the money. Now that is sinister.

 

[spog]

WTF is a taster bag from an aerial photographer

 

[Not For Horses]

nothing sinister...mmm, you don't work for nearmap do you? The the drug pushers of aerial photography, suck you in with the free taster bags then once your hooked they start racking in the money. Now that is sinister.

I used to have one of those free accounts. Didn't stay free for very long. Nor was the imagery ever updated.

 

[OzPaleAle]

I'm a little skeptical that you could get enough lift from those little rotors to lift a 12 pack....... But nifty advertising campaign.

 

[Funk then Funk1]

WTF is a taster bag from an aerial photographer

Nearmap used to be free for everyone for a couple of years, now you have to pay to access it. Very handy tool for looking at aeriel photograpy back over a couple of years to see how a site has changed.

 

[Florian]

Was on free nearmap for well over two or three years, starting with the big floods in brisbane in 2011. Used it all the time, especially when house hunting, measuring garden and roof areas etc, holiday planning, you name it. The images of my area were in brilliant quality and updated about every month They even caught me brewing out there, once.

Then they shut it down for the public and I had withdrawal symptoms for a very long time.

Just got over it not long ago when they sent me an email if I wanted to sign up, $50 a month. Was trying to justify the expense in my head until I read the fine print. $50 bucks gives you access to all their data, but with a 50mb download limit per month. Get fucked!!! What are they expecting me to do with 50mb?? Well, they told me, if I was using it for a business I could get up to 8 site visits per month. What ever happened to just cruising around?

Man, I miss that site, though, best time waster ever.

 

[NewtownClown]

Far from being the first beer delivery by drone.
Beer was delivered by drone to the audience at the Oppikoppi music festival in South Africa last year...

 

[Not For Horses]

I'm a little skeptical that you could get enough lift from those little rotors to lift a 12 pack....... But nifty advertising campaign.

The model they used has a max TOW of 2.4kg. Frame weight is 480g so that leaves you about 1.9kg of payload.
12 beers is roughly 4kg in cans or around 6.5kg in bottles.
The article did say they had to lighten the load by 'some bottles'.