FedEx Announces Drone-Delivery Demo Near Dallas

pcmag.com:

The skies over the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex will get a little more crowded in 2023 when FedEx launches the drone-delivery test it announced Wednesday.

Starting sometime next year around Fort Worth, the delivery firm will test a vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) drone from Elroy Air. That startup’s Chaparral autonomous aircraft, unveiled Jan. 22, relies on a gas turbine-electric powerplant, which takes away zero emissions as a selling point but allows for what FedEx predicts will be a 300-mile range.

FedEx plans to deploy these winged autonomous planes for “middle-mile” shipments, meaning from one FedEx facility to another instead of dropping off packages in front of customers. Its press release says it began working with Bay Area-based Elroy Air in January 2020.

Elroy’s Chaparral flies with a combination of propellers and rotors, with 300 to 500 pounds of cargo lofted in a vaguely canoe-shaped pod held underneath its fuselage. FedEx’s announcement did not provide further details about a possible expansion of this test. 

FedEx’s test flights will join a sky that’s already seen multiple autonomous-flight tests. UPS began testing drone delivery near Tampa back in 2017 and Alphabet’s Wing subsidiary started trials of drone delivery around Christiansburg, Va., in 2019 (with FedEx as one test customer). 

And Amazon, which took its drone-delivery sales pitch to CBS’ 60 Minutes back in 2013, received operating permission in 2020 from the Federal Aviation Administration to conduct aerial shipments across the US, but has yet to begin regular operations. Last week, Insider reported that an Amazon-operated drone, per a redacted FAA report, crashed in Oregon and set a field on fire. 

FedEx has also joined the ranks of logistics