amazon has  blasted federal regulators  for being slow to  approve commercial drone testing   and warned the united states is  falling behind other countries in the potentially lucrative area  of unmanned aviation technology less than a week after the federal aviation administration  gave amazoncom the green light to test a delivery drone  outdoors, the company told us lawmakers that the prototype  drone had already become obsolete while the company waited more  than six months for the agency's permission 'we don't test it anymore we've moved on to more advanced  designs that we already are testing abroad,' said paul misener,  amazoncom's vice president for global public policy scroll down for video  the company must supply monthly data to the regulators, and conduct flights at 400 feet (120 metres) orbelow and in 'visual meteorological conditions,' amazon is developing aerial vehicles as part of amazon prime air the aircraft can travel at more than 50mph and carry loads of up to 5 pounds about 86 percent of amazon's deliveries are 5 pounds or less, the company said 'we believe customers will love it, and we are committed to making prime air available to customers worldwide as soon as we are permitted to do so,' amazon has said 'nowhere outside of the united states have we been required  to wait more than one or two months to begin testing,' misener  said in written testimony submitted to the senate subcommittee  on aviation operations, safety and security misener said amazon had applied on friday for permission to  test a more advanced drone system and now hopes for quicker  approval the amazoncom case illustrates the frustrations of many  companies and industry lobbyists, who say the us regulatory  process is not keeping up with rapidly developing drone  technology that could generate new revenues and cost savings for  a range of industries misener, who was scheduled to join a witness panel at the  subcommittee hearing, said european and other international  authorities have more 'reasonable' approaches that recognize the  potential economic benefits of commercial drone operations 'this low level of government attention and slow pace are  inadequate, especially compared to the regulatory efforts in  other countries,' misener said 'the (faa) already has adequate statutory authority what  the faa needs is impetus, lest the united states fall further  behind,' he added seattle based amazoncom, the largest e commerce company in  the united states, wants to use drones to deliver packages to  its customers over distances of 10 miles (16 km)or more, which  would require drones to travel autonomously while equipped with  technology to avoid collisions with other aircraft the faa recently proposed rules that would lift the current  ban on most commercial drone flights, but several restrictions  attached would make package delivery and other business  applications unfeasible among other constraints, the proposed rules would limit  commercial drones to an altitude of 500 feet (150 metres), allow  flights only during daytime and require operators to keep the  aircraft in sight at all times the agency does not expect to finalize the rules until late  2016 or early 2017, according to government officials during  this period, the current ban will stay in place; companies can  apply for exemptions to use drones for specific business  applications the faa has been slow to grant exemptions, however, granting  only 48 of several hundred requests the republican led subcommittee called the hearing to  examine the agency's efforts to integrate unmanned aircraft  systems, or uas, safely into us airspace industry forecasters  say that drones would generate nearly $14 billion of us economic activity in the first three years of integration and  $82 billion over a decade meanwhile, australia, canada, france and the united kingdom  have progressed toward airspace integration and allow for  commercial use, the government accountability office (gao) said  in a report to the subcommittee australia has granted operating certificates to 185  businesses, while several european countries have granted  licenses to more than 1,000 operators, according to the report while the gao said overseas restrictions are similar to  those proposed by the faa, it noted that france has begun to  allow beyond line of sight operations on a limited basis (additional reporting by allison lampert in montreal editing by  soyoung kim and jonathan oatis)
faa amazon last week
faa gave amazon  green light to test a delivery drone outdoors last week . firm says approved drone is already obsolete . new models are already being tested abroad by the firm 