Wing, the drone delivery firm owned by Google’s parent company Alphabet, is seeking FAA approval to expand its retail package delivery service in Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas. The company says it wants to establish a network of up to 25 drone nests, with each unit conducting as many as 400 deliveries per day in a six-mile radius.
Wing’s drone delivery service has been operational in the Dallas-Fort Worth area since last year. More recently, the company joined forces with Walmart to service around 60,000 homes for the retail giant. Accordingly, Wing is now requesting the FAA to review and approve its expansion plan.
More specifically, Wings says it will transport consumer goods in partnership with merchants in the communities they already serve as an alternative to in-store pickup. One or more merchants may be partnering with Wing at each nest for drone deliveries.
Wing’s nests will be located in established parking lots of commercial areas whose use is consistent with local zoning and land use requirements, such as shopping centers, large individual retailers, and shopping malls.
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In addition, to avoid the potential for significant noise impacts, Wing is planning to build drone nests at least 300 feet away from noise-sensitive areas in Class B and Class D airspace, and at least 75 feet away from noise-sensitive areas everywhere else.
Wing has further clarified that drone delivery operations would occur only during daylight hours, approximately from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., typically seven days of the week, and generally exclude holidays unless related to a community event or holiday-related promotion.
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While the number of flights per day will vary based on customer demand and weather conditions, initially, Wing expects to fly considerably less than 400 deliveries per day from each nest. Over time, however, that number will increase, but even in the locations where the service areas of nests overlap, deliveries would not exceed 400 per day. But in the absence of an overlap, these numbers would translate to a maximum of 10,000 drone deliveries per day.
The FAA, on its part, is inviting feedback from members of the public who may be affected by Wing’s proposed operations. You can read about them in detail here and email your comments to 9-FAA-Drone-Environmental@faa.gov by October 9, 2023, keeping “Wing DFW Texas Draft EA” as the subject line.
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