In many ways, drone delivery still feels very pie in the sky in terms of scalable e-commerce. In smaller, controlled pockets, however, the concept is going swimmingly. Among the spots is a small Google satellite campus in the Palo Alto foothills. The buildings, which neighbor larger Tesla and HP offices, are home to a handful of Google divisions, including Nest and Wing (an accidental theme, one imagines).
Fixed-wing drones are a regular sight in the tiny airspace, courtesy of the latter. The front parking lot is quickly converted into a launch pad for testing these systems and various related mechanisms. Wing rolled out a handful of its delivery planes when I paid the company a visit this week, in part to demonstrate its new system.
Parking lots are an ideal launch pad in a rural area, assuming you’re able to block it off from cars. They’re ubiquitous and offer an unobstructed path for vertical takeoffs. A...
