Jani Talikka was a commercial pilot flying Boeing 717s, but after ordering a drone delivery as a customer, he decided to change course.
“I didn’t leave fixed-wing aviation because I didn’t like it, but drones are groundbreaking,” he told Guardian Australia. “It’s rare that you’re part of something like that from the beginning.”
It may seem years away from our complete reliance on drones, but industries from food delivery to agriculture are already deploying the unmanned aircraft across Australia. As regulators prepare for new unmanned traffic, tech companies are exploring ways to bypass black spots on communications that could prevent drones from falling out of the sky.
And while the idea of skies filled with drones whizzing past may seem like a world of difference, the momentum is growing fast. According to government figures, the number of drones allowed to operate in Australia already exceeds the number of existing airspace users combined.
When you run out of milk
Amazon already offers drone delivery in select cities in the United States, and was announced earlier this month as part of a trial in the United Kingdom. However, Australians in select pilot areas have been able to order food and packages via drone for more than four years.
Wing Aviation, a startup from Google’s parent company Alphabet, is one of two operators granted permission by Australia’s Civil Aviation Safety Association (CASA) to conduct Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVOS) piloting, in which the pilot controls unmanned aircraft via a computer screen.
While the trial approval process in Australia is thorough and requires additional permission from local governments, Wing Casa’s Jesse Suskin describes it as one of the national regulators most open to exploring early drone use.
There are currently about 1.5 million drone flights per year in Australia, according to Airservices Australia, the federal government agency responsible for managing the country’s airspace. And operations continue to expand.
Last month, Wing launched drone deliveries in the Maroondah council area in Melbourne’s east, the first trial in Victoria but Wing’s third in Australia. The company is already active in parts of south-east Queensland, where more than 60 drones are based, following its first attempt in the Australian Capital Territory in 2019.
Wing places its drone fleets on the roofs of shopping malls in each of its test areas.
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Customers can order from inside stores using the DoorDash app. Store or restaurant employees then take orders to the roof, where a Wing employee loads specially designed collapsible packages into the Styrofoam drones before flying them to an address’ driveway or backyard. All that’s needed is a 6-foot perimeter at the destination to drop the package.
“The slowest part is generally the preparation [and loading]“Once it’s on the drone, it’s usually there within minutes,” Suskin said. “We don’t stop at red lights.”
Medicines and freshly prepared meals such as coffee, smoothies and burgers are popular on the service, which still only has a payload of 1.2kg – better suited to individual and smaller items than the weekly shop.
“We focus on routes up to 10km round trip in urban and suburban areas,” Suskin said.
“If you run out of milk, if you need children’s Panadol: it is useful to be able to have those things delivered by drone, instead of having to drive back to the shops during rush hour.”
Not like a video game
While traditional airline operations require at least one pilot per aircraft and air traffic controllers to manage the airspace, operators such as Wing can largely automate deliveries.
One pilot can be responsible for flying up to 50 drones at a time, making drone deliveries cheaper than car deliveries, Suskin said.
“Where previously a company would need 50 cars and 50 drivers to deliver 50 cheeseburger orders, delivering them with a drone only requires one pilot,” he said.
The sector also offers a new employment horizon for traditional airline pilots, which, given the flexibility offered by BVOL pilots, could further complicate the already tight global pilot market.
Although pilots at Wing must work from a remote operating space and do not have the freedom to work from home, they do avoid the grueling schedules and intercity travel that come with commercial aviation.
Talikka has been a drone pilot with Wing for two years now, flying up to 50 at a time. He said that because the drones are highly automated, the experience is less about piloting individual drones and more about overseeing an entire delivery map.
“I don’t have a view from the drone while it’s flying, so it’s not so much a video game — my focus is really on the big picture in our operating area,” he said. “What’s the weather going to look like now, an hour from now? Is there helicopter traffic nearby that I need to be aware of? Do I need to communicate with the ground crew where the drones are taking off and landing to work on a maintenance issue?”
‘You never want to lose contact with a drone’
While a handful of trials are being conducted limited to certain geographic areas, with pilots flying dozens of drones beyond their line of sight, regulators are working to prepare Australia’s airspace for a surge in unmanned aircraft and flying taxis.
Part of the task is to ensure that Australia’s expected 60 million annual drone flights by 2043 can coexist peacefully with existing air traffic management for commercial aircraft in urban areas. Airservices Australia, the Commonwealth agency that oversees airport control towers and 11% of the world’s airspace, is now developing a system for unmanned aircraft.
Meanwhile, Casa is conducting safety checks on drones, just as it does for airlines, to ensure they don’t fall out of the sky.[Wing’s] “The approval followed a rigorous safety assessment by Casa, which confirmed that Wing’s operations meet all required aviation safety standards,” a spokesperson for the regulator said.
It’s less about replacing the shopping cart and more about the delivery person on a scooter
Yoav Amitai, CEO of Elsight
The biggest challenge for Wing is the extreme wind and rain, but the drones are equipped with extra functions. For example, they have two batteries, while they only need one. They also have a navigation system that ensures that the drones continue to hover, even if the connection is lost.
Swoop Aero, the other operator approved by Casa, uses drones to deliver pharmaceutical products in regional areas.
The fact that internet reception is limited to urban areas has so far been a major obstacle for drones seeking to deliver their equipment to remote rural communities, the very method that offers the most benefit.
However, companies are exploring technologies that would make regional operators and off-grid areas less vulnerable to poor mobile reception in the Australian outback.
Elsight’s Halo communications system allows an operator to effectively establish connections with various internet providers, including Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites, to avoid outages when flying long distances.
“Instead of relying on one single network, we can rely on them all: Telstra, Optus, satellite communications,” said Yoav Amitai, CEO of Elsight.
The technology is aimed at operators in rural areas and users who rely on a constant high-speed internet connection, such as drones transmitting video footage for shark monitoring, natural disasters or policing.
In Australia, where major telecommunications issues have been identified as critical weak links in infrastructure chains and in responding to bushfires and floods, Elsight’s Halo is already being used by Sphere Drones, which carries out agricultural operations including crop management, and in mining.
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When an Optus outage in November led to a series of critical infrastructure outages across the country, Sphere drones above a mine in the Hunter Valley in New South Wales stayed airborne by automatically switching to a working mobile provider.
“They didn’t even notice the outage. We can do a little sniffing and use all the networks,” Amitai said.
“We thrive in places where you can’t rely on that connection… you never want to lose contact with a drone.”
Elsight’s Halo is also used in Walmart’s delivery drones in the US. Amitai believes that social acceptance of drones will develop gradually, but trust is required.
“In the late 1800s, with the first cars, people said, ‘Are you crazy? They’re noisy and dangerous, we have horses, why do we need cars?’
“But for delivery, drones are a no-brainer, they are faster and create less traffic,” Amitai said.
“People shouldn’t be afraid that you’ll see drones flying through the air with full shopping carts. It’s less about replacing the shopping cart, but more about the delivery person on a scooter.”