As indicated just last month, drone delivery specialist Wing has begun demonstration flights in a northern suburb of Dublin as a walk-up to full services it has planned next year for Ireland’s capital, and beyond.
As indicated just last month, drone delivery specialist Wing has begun demonstration flights in a northern suburb of Dublin as a walk-up to full services it has planned next year for Ireland’s capital, and beyond.
Manna Aero CEO Bobby Healy is preparing to nearly quadruple the company’s current potential client base in Ireland with the start of drone deliveries in a large Dublin-area town in a few months. From there, he plans to launch activity in European Union nations he considers ready for aerial services. Healy tells DroneDJ in the second part of our interview why he believes its regulations put the EU in particularly strong position to take the global lead in emerging UAV-based services; how Manna’s full-stack drone manufacturing and operation model gives it a business advantage; and why a trained programmer who successfully built two tech travel sector companies decided drone deliveries would be his next challenge.
Tech entrepreneur Bobby Healy’s objective is as simple as it is enormous. He wants to use the momentum he’s created establishing Manna Aero as Ireland’s hottest aerial tech business to transform it into the biggest and best drone delivery company on the planet. And to do that, he’s readying its launch across the European Union in the coming months, with the US following hard on that.
Add Ireland to the list. Like a growing number of countries around the globe, Irish authorities say they’re now working to detect and thwart drone deliveries of contraband to the nation’s prisons, and have introduced anti-UAV technology into jails as a part of that.
Talk about the risks of flying a UAV without proper documentation. A 38-year-old Irish national and 12-year resident of New York is being detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) awaiting deportation over a visa infraction uncovered after his battery-depleted drone made an unexpected landing. Readers thus inclined can click a link supporting the pilot’s case toward the end of this post.
Ireland is expected to hear debate later this year on proposed legislation that would allow the nation’s police force, An Garda Síochána, expanded use of drones for surveillance and other missions that critics claim pose data use and personal privacy risks.