Further Reading Amazon’s drones revealed in patent

In an interview with Yahoo News , Amazon has revealed a little more about its forthcoming drone-based delivery system. Paul Misener, Amazon’s vice president for global public policy, said that the company has very specific targets for " Prime Air ."

"So Prime Air is a future delivery service that will get packages to customers within 30 minutes of them ordering it online at Amazon.com," he told Yahoo News. "The goals we’ve set for ourselves are: The range has to be over 10 miles. These things will weigh about 55 pounds each, but they’ll be able to deliver parcels that weigh up to five pounds. It turns out that the vast majority of the things we sell at Amazon weigh less than five pounds."

And how will Amazon deal with drone haters with shotguns ? Misener isn't worried. "I suppose they could shoot at trucks, too," he said. "We want to make the deliveries. And we believe that these Prime Air drones will be as normal as seeing a delivery truck driving down the street someday. So the novelty will wear off."

Another obvious problem is that if Amazon and its rivals are successful, urban airspace will become saturated with buzzing drones. Misener told Yahoo News that Amazon has proposed the Federal Aviation Administration (and other regulators around the globe) create a layered airspace that would leave room for drones. "We were thinking: Manned aircraft above 500 feet. Between 400 and 500 feet there’d be a no-fly zone—a safety buffer," he said. "Between 200 and 400 feet would be a transit zone, where drones could fly fairly quickly, horizontally. And then below 200 feet, that would be limited to certain operations. For us, it would be takeoff and landing. For others, it might be aerial photography. The realtors, for example, wouldn’t need to fly above 200 feet to get a great shot of a house."

Further Reading Amazon shows off prototype drone for future delivery service in new video

Misener gave no indication about when or where Prime Air would be first deployed—in the US, the FAA would first have to approve commercial drone use. Similarly, in the UK, Amazon would still need approval from the Civil Aviation Authority.

"Challenges are there, for sure, but once we demonstrate that this is safe, we’ll be able to take it to the regulators and hopefully deploy it for our customers quickly," Misener concluded. "I’ve seen it. It’s gonna happen. It’s coming."