I thank Don for his insightful report on this drone delivery service. In many ways, this is a test to give everyone in the drone industry more true to life/real experience with using drones for delivery. Are you able to give us one of your drone videos of their delivery service when it starts?:icon_wink:

I agree, Thank You, Don.

Exactly. Complete waste of time.

I'm guessing it's just a small localized test of what they hope will scale into a much larger system if it ever gets off the ground (PUN intended) Kind of like the driverless cars with drivers or the many other companies playing with drone delivery services. It's obvious what they are doing wouldn't be their "final plan" but just a first step to see if it works.

To bad we wouldn't know what drugs each would be carrying because people could send up "drone interceptors." :)

Think of all the possibilities for dog walkers: Drone Walks Dog During COVID-19 Lockdown | NowThis - YouTube

No but if your ball hits a duck following the drone you will have to cook it.

Out of curiosity, what does "uninhabited" mean in this context? I live a couple of miles from a CVS but there are houses and shopping centers/businesses all along the way.

Was there any discussion of delivery fees?

This sounds like an "experiment" in the advance of Telemedicine using Smart Phones. This is a topic that has been casually mentioned but not well described in general. Could ultimately be used to diagnose, prescribe, order, deliver required prescription without leaving the house. The drone delivery is only one phase. Might be most beneficial in rural areas.

My eye care facility suggested the first phase recently (diagnose) but I opted out due to lack of understanding how they could perform any of the complex reviews (status of my macular degeneration, eye pressure, etc without expensive equipment and dialation). Going to facility Thursday and will question.

Some good questions, most of which I also asked Fred.
Yes, this is one of many exercises in getting "drone delivery" off the ground (I'll reuse the pun since it's already out there) as a business model. One of the big issues UPS, FedEx, and other delivery services deal with is the windshield time for delivery for the one-off deliveries (they have a special name for these that I've forgotten), these are expensive and time consuming and they are looking at UAS service as a way of reducing these expenses. The below video is an example of this:

UPS Tests Residential Delivery Via Drone - YouTube

This effort with CVS is focusing on a quick delivery approach. For example a half dozen prescriptions are ready for the Chatham area, these could be delivered to the final mile driver from the CVS in about 10 minutes who then makes the deliveries. After completing these deliveries they go to the Briar Meadows drop area and picks up the deliveries for there and then delivers them. This would continue throughout the day at various locations coordinated through software. Two low emission vehicles (golf carts) and a UAS could cover the deliveries from The Village of Summerhill to The Village of Woodbury instead of using multiple cars or trucks that would have to make multiple trips each day back to the store for pickups.

Another approach under consideration is the delivery to nursing home/assisted living facilities (roof top delivery) for daily and expedited deliveries using facility staff to receive the cargo and do the last-mile delivery.

The cost model is still a little unclear, the windshield time will be a huge savings but would be replaced by other costs. Will it be free or a premium service will have to be worked out. They are working hard to get their equipment costs down, right now a delivery drone costs nearly as much as one of the brown truck they use.

There is more sparsely populated and uninhabited areas around The Villages than most people realize. Flight routes would include over farms, golf courses, and utilizing power line routes. Their Part 135 certification gives them a lot more flexibility than is available to other sUAS operations under Part 107 certification and rules that others have to fly under, myself included.

There are a lot of things they are working out and will find even more issues as the service develops that will need to be worked out.

I am not a big fan of drones. Sure, they take nice pictures of areas, but they can also be an invasion of privacy. Delivery of drugs by drone. What next. Surveillance of your personal activities. Big brother is watching. Watch what your wish for. Only the opinion of a humble man.

"I have never made a mistake in my life. I thought I did once, but I was wrong."

You're watching too much TV, the stuff you see is fantasy, if they you hear them say "enhance that picture" that is where they start to make things up. There are only so many dots in the picture, you can't divide 1 dot into 10 and get more information out of it, but it does make for great TV drama. Flight times and ranges are very limited (<30 min.) and the aircraft are very noisy, I can hear mine clearly at 1000 ft distance and 400 ft high, and that's one of the quitest on the market. The UPS drones don't even have a camera on them, control is all done with flight telemetry and ground observers.

There will always be those with nefarious intentions that can't be controlled.

Seems like TV is a good place for experimentation.....self driving cars, drones, .... Robots next?..always interesting watching new technology...

This is vert interesting discussion and information. I sent an inquiry directly to CVS Health this morning with 7 questions and concerns, if I get a reply, I will post the results. Based on the above information, some of my concerns are mute, because I was going from the news article on television that was not complete. I never though about dogs in a yard. I did think about the someone following the drones for a possible intercept. Wonder what happens if the bad guy is armed?
While I can see advantages, I think there may be some bugs to be worked out.

Drone prescription delivery
 

Was reading that CVS and UPS have teamed up to start doing drone prescription deliveries in The Villages starting this month! Pretty cool way to help people stay inside.

I think I'd rather use the drive up window