Original reporting I did with a few Jonestown survivors. They caught a lucky break 41 years ago, but some of their friends, children and other relatives didn’t.
I wrote a piece for @vicemag about student loans and how to confront them early on, before they metastasize. Heed the advice, youngins.
The Drone Racing League’s CEO Nicholas Horbaczewski talks Lockheed partnership.
The 2008 Financial Crisis was terrifying. Unfortunately, the experienced and inherited anxiety isn’t enough to properly prepare for the next one. I spoke to some money and career experts to recession-proof my life (as much as humanly possible) for @FREEbyVICE
I went to a Workhorse event at Flatiron Plaza this week to have a look at the SureFly electric passenger drone in person. Vertical takeoff and landing, soon to be fully FAA authorized, $200,000 a piece – perhaps in under two years.
An Post Successfully Completes Ireland’s First Mail Delivery via Drone
Ireland’s state-owned postal service, An Post, successfully delivered its first package via drone from Mayo county to Clare Island on Thursday, according to The Irish Times. While a single parcel delivery may not inspire rabid enthusiasm among the global drone-savvy public, an An Post spokesperson did confirm that this flight was “the first of its kind in the country.”
“Just after 3:30 pm on Thursday we delivered a parcel by drone from Roonagh Pier in Mayo to Clare Island,” the spokesperson said, adding that it was the company’s “first autonomous drone over water, a test flight and a prelude where similar flights to hard-to-reach locations are concerned.”
As you can see from An Post’s tweet, the drone covered 18,245 feet (5,561 meters) at around 32.5 mph, with the delivery taking 11 minutes and 20 seconds to complete. In terms of altitude, the UAV presumably stayed at the above displayed 77.4 foot (23.6 meters) altitude for the majority of its flight.
When it comes to UAV-based mail delivery, there’s a wide range of precedents in this niche of the industry, painting an informative picture of just how prepared and organized disparate territories of the globe actually are for the task. The National University of Singapore, for example, completed its first parcel delivery on campus earlier this year, while Russia’s UAV-based mail delivery quite literally hit a wall during Russian Post’s inaugural flight. South Korea was slightly more prepared, with national postal service Korea Post planning to standardize UAV delivery by 2022 after successfully completing its first parcel delivery last November.
As for Ireland, while this successful drone delivery “will not replace the regular service” comprised of transporting mail by boat, helicopter, and ground-based vehicles, “it is going to be part of the future,” the An Post spokesman confirmed. He added that An Post’s drone delivery would eventually cover more urban territories in the future, making Thursday’s flight a historical benchmark for both the company and the country.
Astro Aerospace & Paterson Composites Partner for Electric Passenger Drone Project.
Drone company Astro Aerospace and carbon composite manufacturer Paterson Composites just partnered to work on the manual and autonomous Astro Aerospace Passenger Drone. Passenger drones, of course, are electric UAVs that can carry at least one person and fly them from point A to point B. Think of them as flying taxis of the future. According to Yahoo, Paterson Composites already has experience in the field, having worked with Boeing’s Aurora Flight Sciences on equipment, while Astro Aerospace has been manufacturing space and aviation technologies since 1958.
Paterson Composites’ specializes in carbon fiber materials specifically designed per individual client and their needs. For Astro Aerospace’s new passenger drone project, that means Paterson will build the entire airframe, including the cockpit and requisite propellers. The company’s president and CEO, Rob Paterson, will serve in an advising position to Astro’s design team and provide a group of industrial engineers to the development team. Paterson has a history of selecting the right combination of designers, engineers and specialists to function well together, and has worked in robotics and composites for over a decade now.
“I’m pleased to be joining the Astro Design Team as its newest advisor, and look forward to offering my expertise to a project that will propel the aerial industry forward and take vehicular production a step into the future,” he said. “I plan on helping the Passenger Drone project excel using many years of project management experience, a passion for engineering and design, and a personal commitment to creating innovative products for the world.”
Astro Aerospace’s Passenger Drone is an emission-free, 16-rotor, vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) drone with a touchscreen control display that either lets you take over manually or informs you of your autonomous flight’s progress. The aircraft was designed for minimum weight and magnetic interference in mind, using fiber-optics and carbon fiber materials.
“We are elated by our new partnership with Paterson Composites, specialists in the work of carbon fiber, who will undoubtedly enable us, as a team, to build an aerial vehicle capable of awing and serving the world,” said Astro Aerospace CEO Bruce Bent. “We are also looking forward to the addition of Rob Paterson to the Astro Aerospace Design Team as its newest advisor. His guidance and project management skills, which will be placed towards the construction of the Passenger Drone, are highly respected, credible, viable, and of course, appreciated as we embark on this journey.”
Passenger drones are rapidly entering mainstream discussion when it comes to the world of drones. While only recently seeming like an overambitious, distant-future idea, we’re now in an era where companies like Boeing predict electric passenger drones to be commonplace within the next 10 years, while NASA partners with Uber to focus on developing a system to manage this proposed influx of aerial passenger vehicles in the near future. As the commercial drone industry grows, citizens of the world become increasingly familiar with UAVs, and legislation is adapting to the modern drone phenomenon, the notion that flying taxis may soon take us to the office is less of an “if,” and more of a “when.”