No, I’m not talking about using drones to enforce social distancing. That’s a borderline privacy violation. No, I’m not talking about using drones to help identify temperatures from people. That’s just erroneous. What I’m talking about is utilizing a network of drone pilots.
Haven’t we’ve been told that he’s to opening up the economy is dependent on the amount of testing that we can offer. Do we have a current infrastructure setup to offer this added benefit? Do we have a way to offer this macro-scale in delivery or humans across the United States?
Do you ever wonder if our government, or our federal administration is attempting to find alternative solutions for increasing testing supplies and getting those to people?
Ghana Starts Using Drone Delivery for COVID Testing
It seems like one small country in Africa has outsmarted the wealthiest nation in the world. Ghana, a small country, has decided to utilize the Zip line as a company to deliver testing materials and to deliver antibiotic tests to patients up to 35 miles from the point of contact.
That’s significant. In the United States, it makes you wonder how come we’re not utilizing the same sort of infrastructure and delivery to increase the speed and efficiency of the testing supplies. Well in 2018, the Federal Aviation Administration specifically said that 14 CFR 107 pilots flying drones cannot carry cargo at all, giving Amazon the middle finger. The FAA pretty much wrote off drone delivery with the inception of Part 107 drone laws. (Updated: You might be able to deliver under 107)
How Drone Delivery Could Give the Economy a Much-Needed Push
We have not realized how powerful drone delivery could be – not only to stop a global pandemic but also to accelerate a global economy at an order of scale that is simply not perceivable by the human mind.
Every growth in the economy from the inception of the industrial age has come by making things easier, more convenient, and more accessible to consumers. What does that mean? Think about this, right?
Internet accessibility, the iPhone revolution, the advent of eCommerce, AirBnB, cab aggregators…all the innovations that have disrupted existing industries have made it easier for you and me to use products and services.
So could drone delivery single-handedly stop the coronavirus?
Would it allow us to reopen the economy at record scale? The answer is depends. If the FAA and the president were to work together to create an executive order to allow all 14 CFR apart 107 certified pilots to offer drone delivery, we can single-handedly team up with the CDC and the NIH to deliver coronavirus tests at a magnitude of scale faster than what’s possible right now. So if the economy is so important, why aren’t we coming up with solutions and alternatives to get this economy reopened?
To the United States Federal Aviation Administration, to the presidential administration under Mr. Donald Trump, we ask you, “why not utilize the 150,000 + drone pilots that are in the United States to vastly accelerate the deployment of antibody testing and testing as a whole?”
Traditional Delivery Services Simply Can’t Keep Up
Think about this. UPS, FedEx…they’re all overrun right now. They’re even slowing down deliveries to allow for essential items to be delivered. They are going to be utilized as infrastructure to help get tests out well.
If you are familiar with transportation, you might be aware that the biggest issue with any type of delivery is what we call last mile delivery. It’s essentially what is the last mile, and how do we get it there?
UPS has already proven that drones can increase the efficiency of a single driver by having drones fulfill the last mile. So, dear FAA maybe it’s time to take a few regulations off the books. Haven’t we proven how safe drones are? We have 8 million drones in the United States. And how many crash every year?
Less than I can count on my hand. Doesn’t that make it a statistical outlier? All right, FAA. It’s time to stop. It’s time to put your drone entrepreneur hat on and it’s time to figure out how we can deploy drone pilots all over the United States – To stop the coronavirus and reopen the economy.
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