Friday, April 10, 2015

FAA Speeds Along Amazon Drone Approval

Seattle-based Amazon.com has received one of 30 exemptions by the Federal Aviation Administration, to allow more R&D experimentation by the company, which is looking to deliver packages via drone aircraft--only a few weeks after an embarassing announcement by the FAA of approval of an obsolete version of Amazon's drones. The FAA said that Amazon was one of 30 exemptions granted for commercial drone research on Thursday, which lets Amazon fly its drones up to 400 feet high and up to 100 miles an hour, but only on private property. Amazon had shifted testing of it drones to Canada, and has publicly pilloried the FAA for its slow movement on commercial use of drones.