Deutsche Post Drone Delivery 0 – Weather 2
Spanky looking VTOL from DHL and their parent company Deutsche Post. A five kg payload and speed to boot. A Gary Gress bi-copter and a V-22 Osprey met in a hanger somewhere perhaps. The unnamed aircraft failed to take off for a planned press demo in the Bavarian Alps on Monday.
The weather got in the way. Just like it did for the DHL multirotor slated to deliver medicine to an island last year.
It does look like a much better attempt than those being touted by Google and Amazon.
“Tilt-wing drones are more energy efficient and can therefore travel longer distances,” said Dieter Moormann, a professor of flight dynamics at Germany’s University of Aachen, which was a partner with DHL on the project.
I really don’t see how weather will be overcome with the smaller platforms that vendors hope to use for the last few miles of the delivery chain.
My crystal ball says Cessna Caravans flown without a pilot to a hub airfield will be the drone element and from there an autonomous ground vehicle will do the rest.
If you make the system bigger there is no way you can safely land it in a street unattended.
Right now the most efficient platform by far would be a conventional helicopter type, very well known and able to lift many kgs. Here’s an off the shelf one lifting over 16kg.
They only suffer from having those pesky large rotating knives top and back.
