Yesterday’s 5×8 NewsCut blog by Bob Collins mentions that the FAA has recently grounded a Minnesota business’s innovative use of drones to deliver beer to ice fishing houses on Lake Mille Lacs.
It’s unlikely the FAA can keep them all at arm’s length, try as it might. But, theNPR reports, the agency has put the kibosh on a brewer’s plan to deliver beer to fish houses on Lake Mille Lacs.
Lakemaid Beer president Jack Supple’s mistake: He made a video, put it on Vimeo, it went viral, and the FAA saw it. Leave the video out, and the aerial bar is open on the lake, people.
Of course, Amazon started talk of the drone delivery concept last December when it got CBS to air a story about its plans for drone delivery service the day before Cyber Monday. I like the idea of drone delivery in that it has the potential to remove a lot of motor vehicle delivery trips from streets but, it’s likely not going to happen (at least not on a regular basis without getting shut down by the FAA) in the near future.
Edit (clarification): Since posting this morning I learned that the brewer has not actually been delivering beer by drone to ice fishers. The company was planning on doing this and the video did attract the attention of the FAA which told the brewer not to proceed at this time since commercial drone use is currently prohibited by law.