{"id":7115,"date":"2024-02-15T16:59:46","date_gmt":"2024-02-15T16:59:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/?p=7115"},"modified":"2024-02-15T16:59:46","modified_gmt":"2024-02-15T16:59:46","slug":"nevada-based-skydrop-is-finding-new-drone-wings-overseas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/nevada-based-skydrop-is-finding-new-drone-wings-overseas\/","title":{"rendered":"Nevada-Based Skydrop Is Finding New Drone Wings Overseas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/OHLt8RFPGNY?si=xbbAf5tmKA_y2UoM\" width=\"740\" height=\"415\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><span style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><\/iframe><br \/>\nIn July 2016, one of the first drones flying commercially in the United States carried a box of Slurpees, snacks and a chicken sandwich from a 7-11 convenience store in Nevada to a nearby customer\u2019s back garden.\u00a0 The drone carrier, then known as Flirtey, envisioned a booming business future for itself and for the retail drone delivery market as a whole.\u00a0 But the momentum stalled.\u00a0 Flirtey, like Amazon and other drone start-ups, including Walmart, found themselves struggling to perfect an aircraft that could pass muster with the Federal Aviation Administration\u2019s tough safety and regulatory requirements.<\/p>\n<p>Others soon gained the needed approval, in fits and starts.\u00a0 But Flirtey, despite its early promise, never \u201ctook off.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Today, eight years later, the Reno, NV-based company \u2013 operating under a new name, SkyDrop \u2013 has finally found its wings \u2013 overseas.\u00a0 The company just received final approval from New Zealand\u2019s\u2019 Civil Aviation Authority to begin regular drone deliveries later this year.\u00a0 It could be the start of something big, and for Skydrop\u2019s founders, the fulfillment of a long-delayed dream.<\/p>\n<p>New Zealand\u2019s regulatory environment is far more drone friendly than America\u2019s.\u00a0 Wing, the subsidiary of Alphabet, Google\u2019s parent company, has already flown tens of thousands of small package deliveries across the entire Australian region.\u00a0 That\u2019s given Skydrop an opening, but the CAA didn\u2019t grant its approval to the company easily &#8211; far from it.<\/p>\n<p>The company had to conduct several years of extensive testing of its drone prototype in the United States and New Zealand before getting the CAA\u2019s go-ahead.\u00a0 It also had to work closely and patiently with stakeholders in the small town of Huntly (pop. 10,000) to win over the local indigenous population known as the Waahi Paa, who demanded ownership of the delivery project, even rebranding SkyDrop\u2019s drone, dubbed \u201cThe Hawk,\u201d in its native language.<\/p>\n<p>Another reason for SkyDrop\u2019s newfound success is its unique safety technology, which includes an onboard parachute recovery system and IRIS obstacle-avoidance sensors that allow for Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) operations at scale.\u00a0 The company aims to expand its pilot operation in Huntly to additional nearby locations as part of a nationwide network of drone hubs across New Zealand.\u00a0 The next step is to expand to Australia, Canada, and the European Union member countries, all of whom are highly receptive to SkyDrop\u2019s state-of-the-art delivery method, officials say.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;SkyDrop is excited to work with the CAA to make New Zealand the innovation leader in speedier, cheaper, and greener last-mile drone delivery. This approval is a groundbreaking milestone for SkyDrop, and the drone delivery industry,&#8221; says company founder and CEO Matthew Sweeny.<\/p>\n<p>Skydrop has several other drone products and services in development besides the Hawk, including a take-off and landing platform and autonomous flight operation software.\u00a0 In addition to Domino\u2019s and 7-11, the company recently added a breakthrough partnership with the Phoenix-based aviation company Mesa Air Group, which owns two small airlines.\u00a0 Right now, Skydrop\u2019s biggest obstacle may be financial:\u00a0 the company\u2019s still getting by with the $16 million it raised in a Series A round led by Menlo Ventures and Qualcomm Ventures back in 2017.\u00a0 But with fresh investment support, it won\u2019t be long before Skydrop starts flying stateside again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\ufeff In July 2016, one of the first drones flying commercially in the United States carried a box of Slurpees, snacks and a chicken sandwich from a 7-11 convenience store in Nevada to a nearby customer\u2019s back garden.\u00a0 The drone carrier, then known as Flirtey, envisioned a booming business future for itself and for the&#8230; <a href=\"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/nevada-based-skydrop-is-finding-new-drone-wings-overseas\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":7117,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,21],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7115"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7115\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}