Another day, another article touting the inevitable invasion of drone technology into every facet of modern life. Except for today’s article is a little less glowing than normal and is perhaps more of a cautionary tale about the boundless enthusiasm for all things UAV.
Amazon has talked about bringing your packages straight to your house via drone and Chinese companies are even exploring personal transport via drone technology and passenger-sized UAVs. The future is somewhat boundless for this technology, or at least that’s what analysts would have you believe.
While this Russian project is not the first in the world to set out to achieve the goal of courier delivery via unmanned aerial vehicle, it is perhaps the most stunning setback and embarrassment for the segment in a while.
The Russian Postal Drone debuted in front of a crowd who were there to witness it deliver a small package to a nearby village.
Bearing the Russia Post Office’s livery, the drone lifts off with a whoosh, arcs sharply in the air, and then crashes at full throttle into a nearby brick wall, leaving debris scattered all over the area.
Of course the disaster has prompted Russia’s postal service to distance itself from the project, saying they were there only as a guest but it has also prompted examination by some of the costly nature of failures in drone technology.
Sure this drone was tiny, but what about a larger drone, especially some of those being proposed for carrying heavy cargo? What would a catastrophic failure of that bit of kit look like?
Everything is all well and good until someone has something that weighs more than a large dog land on their head.
That said, here’s to hoping the team behind this project gives it another shot in the future, just this time with perhaps no crowd to witness any setbacks.
