FAA Put Drone Beer Delivery On Ice

Jack Supple, president of Lakemaid Beer, released a video on YouTube demonstrating just how easy it would be to have a nice cold beer delivered by a drone.

Forget Amazon’s drone delivery plans, beer delivery sounds far more interesting. The YouTube video featured fisherman out on Minnesota’s Mille Lacs Lake ordering a pack of beer. Once the store clerk has taken the order and noted the coordinates, off flies the drone to successfully deliver the goods to the thirsty fisherman.

When designing and producing the Lakemaid delivery drone, it was necessary to make some adjustments, as the robot was unable to pick a full 12-pack of beer. The total weight was brought down to fifteen pounds and nine ounces by removing two bottles. This meant the drone could take off and land without any damage to the cargo.

Lakemaid obviously thought they had beaten Amazon in the drone delivery race with Jack Supple saying: “We figured that we were smarter [delivering] on frozen lakes rather than in big cities like Amazon.”

However the plans have been put on ice due to the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) instructions to halt all flights, as they were considered to be a commercial enterprise.

Supple reveals that the FAA made reference to the document ‘Integration of Civil Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) in the National Airspace System Roadmap’, which states:

For a person wishing to design, manufacture, market, or operate a UAS for a commercial mission and seeking FAA approval for that aircraft, its pilot and the operations, existing rules have not been fully tailored to the unique features of UAS.

So it looks like Lakemaid will have to wait until 2015 just like Amazon, when it is thought that new rules will be brought in, allowing a limited use of commercial drones.

[Image via abcnews]

SOURCE: http://mashable.com/2014/02/01/beer-drone/