Despite releasing new guidelines on operating drones earlier this year, which pretty much banned any kind of commercial usage, the FAA revealed on Thursday that it is now going to allow Amazon to test out drone delivery.
Amazon was issued an an “experimental airworthiness certificate,” which it will now use for “research and development and crew training.” The FAA says that it “typically issues experimental certificates to manufacturers and technology developers to operate a UAS that does not have a type certificate.”
There are some provisions: first, all flight operations must be conducted at 400 feet or below, they must take place during daylight hours “in visual meteorological conditions.” The drone must always remain within visual line-of-sight of the pilot and observer, and the pilot actually flying the aircraft must have at least a private pilot’s certificate and current medical certification.
Ok, so these don’t exactly allow Amazon to just go ahead and start delivering packages to your doorstep. In fact, many of these rules are some of the same regulations that the FAA put in place earlier this year. But it is a step in the right direction for Amazon, which after it announced in 2013 that it wanted to start delivering packages via drone, and has made it a top priority ever since………
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