There is a demand for fast transportation of medical supplies.

A company has already provided services to the NHS, during the pandemic.

https://skyportsdroneservices.com/nhs-launches-uks-first-cov...

Not really vaporware.

In addition to my previous comments, if there's actual demand this means that the NHS is currently paying a higher fee per delivery which should allow a private competitor to step in, undercut the current system (whether via drone deliveries or otherwise) and make a profit. It doesn't have to be limited to the NHS even - there are plenty of other applications that would benefit from faster & more flexible logistics powered by drones. Yet it isn't happening, suggesting the current system is already in its optimal state.

>Yet it isn't happening, suggesting the current system is already in its optimal state.

I don't follow. A gap not filled is not evidence of no gap.

I can think of several companies/industries/products where people said "It's as optimal as it gets!" and then Netflix/Dropbox/Uber/Pick-X-Tech-Company gets invented and makes things more optimal or changes the game completely. They also make all the people who say "our current system is in it's optimal state" look silly.

The Netflix/Dropbox/Uber/Pick-X-Tech-Company tried and failed too - Amazon and others did a big push for drone delivery at larger scales a few years ago with a huge bankroll and tech light-years away from a government-sponsored project and even they couldn't make it work.

A classic, classic move in the UK when you want to get govt money to do something of marginal or negative social value is to find some way of 'helping the NHS'.

Take a look at Greensill Capital. They were running a politically exposed shadow bank with terrible risk controls. They hired a former Prime Minister to sell a project which would 'lend NHS staff their salaries mid month'.

Not vaporware, however, not ready for scaling up on to an industrial scale. The main concern remains safety in case of a malfunction. Until that has been addressed, the main benefit seems to be delivery of essentials (e.g. cancer medications) to remote areas where the drone can fly mostly over uninhabited areas.

we already have motorcyclists for this - there are Blood Bike volunteers in most counties. They carry blood, organs, samples, supplies, etc much faster than even a car on blue lights. And it's cheap :)

Vapourware is when someone promises to meet a need with no intention of doing so. The fact there might be at least some need for this doesn't mean it isn't vapourware.

I'm not sure about that definition. I think it includes people who genuinely believe they will meet the need, but it's obvious to a knowledgeable observer that they won't succeed. E.g. Elisabeth Holmes, Elon Musk (self driving and mars colonization, not landing rockets).

> There is a demand for fast transportation of medical supplies [emphasis mine]

Is there really?

I understand that for non-fungible, perishable goods such as organs or test samples there might be a need (though a helicopter would do just as well), but when it comes to supplies, it will be significantly cheaper to just make more of them and stock up on them at each hospital rather than moving them back & forth (not to mention that this particular trial only ranged for 40 miles - this is something a car can easily do).

It won't work unless it's cheaper than the alternatives, and I can't see it being cheaper than just optimizing logistics elsewhere to ensure you have a big enough stock of medical supplies to not need regular drone deliveries (and when you do, a helicopter is an adequate backup plan).

> though a helicopter would do just as well

It's very very easy to be cheaper than a helicopter. Drones can require zero or minimal labor, move fast, and run on electricity.

If we can have them carry a decent weight and have good reliable ways to get them from and to where they need to go, they will revolutionize delivery. Door dash will be obsolete.

Ad-hoc drones being able to take off, fly and land anywhere? Sure, at least in theory. In practice, even Amazon and various well-funded, profit-driven players couldn’t make it work (drone delivery was very hyped up ~5 years ago) so I have no expectation that an incompetent government will achieve anything other than getting fleeced by consultancies.

In addition, the Amazon/DoorDash model isn’t even what we’re talking about here - this is a predefined, specific route with the last mile still handled by conventional vehicles, so it is even worse.

What if my house is inside restricted airspace (like most of the urban population)?

That's where predefined corridors are important. Let drones fly over restricted airspace with some registration and along "air roads".

Sure, but I’m referring to the notion of last mile delivery. It won’t work except in rural areas.

Why wouldn't it work? A drone can just fly right up to your doorstep. Getting it right is a tough job, but nothing about it is impractical.

So your 'predefined corridors' up-thread are going to lead to every doorstep?

Maybe the drones operate along aerial highways, and use a Wile E. Coyote-esque claw to release their payload on a parachute?

Over every home enough that the only worry of the drone is dodging yard stuff (trees, and buildings, mostly?), at least.

If we could all have landing pads like we have mail boxes, something with a fence, it would be much better.

So major cities are just one big pre-defined 'corridor'? What's the point, may as well just un-restrict it at that point?

You are generally want to have corridors so that you know where the drones are going to be, so you wouldn't just unrestrict everything, you'd have specific paths that the drones need to take to and from their destinations, like roads on the ground.

You don't leave it free space because then you have all sorts of drones whizzing around in all sorts of random and uncontrolled directions and that creates a lot of clutter that will cause crashing.

Zipline (https://www.flyzipline.com/) seems to be doing this well in their specific market niche.

In an area with unpaved dirt roads.

Indeed. Seems little sense for this in mainland England. The sensible applications are Highlands and Islands.

Given the current U.K. government’s penchant for announcing and re-announcing major projects that turn out to be less than nothing, you’d have hoped that journalists would have got a bit more sceptical. But no.

My ex-boss is involved in the project to get organs delivered fast via drones that were basically just flying minifridges. This might be pretty useful for that.

Is this (organ transport) really an unsolved issue that some kind of "drone highway" would solve? I doubt it.

If you think transporting organs by car is a solution, then yeah, very much solved. But organs degrade every minute, so even a little speed up is very much worth it.

They transport them by motorbike at the moment, just because they can skip traffic much better.

But yes, quick delivery for organs is great - if this is enough commercial demand to make a drone superhighway worthwile/viable though is another question. Also these drone superhighways drop at a specific point at the end of the highway - so you still need to pick it up from the superhighway 'Skyway hub' and get it to the end customer.

When I looked at the Coventry Skyway project last it looked like it was started by a team who had nearly no experience in aviation or logistics so it did make me a bit sus.

Same with blood, when you need it you really need it.

There is an awesome (volunteer) organisation in the UK called Blood Bikes[1] that operate all over the UK.

The training is pretty intensive, it's something I'm considering doing after I get a full license (and 2 years and advanced) because it's an amazing thing to do.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_bike

Then get a helicopter. ;-)

I have a medical helicopter flying over my house roughly every second day and that's more than enough. If all the cars marked as "organ transport" that I see around here went by helicopter instead I wouldn't be able to hear my GF talking at home... And of course - the cost and emissions, and the inability to land at small fields...

I don't see how a big, bulky, human-piloted helicopter could be in any way better than a specialized, lightweight unmanned vehicle.

I bet the money that will be wasted on this project (before it inevitable get shelved) will be way more than the costs of just buying out the land affected by the noise from helicopter organ transport so people that are bothered by it can move (and maybe resell the land at a discount to those who don't mind the noise, whether it's due to better soundproofing or converting it to office space that wouldn't mind it).

Yes, in the very long run, drone transport for these things would be better due to emissions/etc, but IMO the country has more pressing problems at the moment.

I live in the centre of a capital city. Not even the state could get enough money to buy the affected land here.

> Yes, in the very long run, drone transport for these things would be better due to emissions/etc, but IMO the country has more pressing problems at the moment.

A country always has thousands of more pressing problems, the issue is that nobody orders them the same way. The best you can do is to solve more than one problem at a time.

I think in the here and now, autonomous drones sharing airspace with other aircraft is not really a solved problems. Otherwise agreed.

Hence the "superhighway" to ensure the drones sticks to a pre-defined volume which other aircraft won't be straying into.

For what it’s worth, a lot of vehicles marked “organ transport” are just people trying to avoid speeding tickets and aggressive behavior from other drivers.

At current situation, reliability of transport. Drones may be 99% reliable (making up the number), but thats not enough when that 1% means somebody on waiting list is going to die due to failed transport.

Costs benefits are obvious but there are always drawbacks, especially when every fail may mean 1 dead person.

And that you bought your property so badly placed is unfortunate, but the result of your own choices (or more like lack of thorough research). If you bought it next to highway so should all car traffic in the area be banned?

> inability to land at small fields...

Helicopters can operate with VTOL.

Or just get an FTP account, mount it locally with curlftpfs, and then use SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem.

Helicopter pads are not available everywhere.

Where do you think an organ transport helicopter would need to land? In a larger hospital or next to your local butcher?

Almost every hospital, at least everyone that does transplants, will have a landing pad.

But that's the point - this would enable new use cases, like for example performing emergency organ replacement at a smaller hospital, when transport is too dangerous for the person, or when a helicopter is not available.

Also, you might be transporting organs from a smaller place to a big hospital - donors that got into an accident probably didn't take care to have it near a helipad.

> Almost every hospital, at least everyone that does transplants, will have a landing pad.

Perhaps before they had that, this same line of thinking might have concluded they didn't need one, as they already had a car park.

I suppose helicopter pilots are a bit hard to come by also

It is a race against time, with a life at risk, in adverse traffic.

Watch an actual organ being transported through London [1], back in the mid-1980s. Situation is worse today, if you talk to EMR drivers.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTN5X4JZFjU

What a riveting 30 minutes that was.

> Is this (organ transport) really an unsolved issue that some kind of "drone highway" would solve? I doubt it.

I didn't say it would solve it.

Organ transport might be a good application. That doesn't mean that we should allow drones for any other types of application without thinking it over very thoroughly.

And let's not forget to tax the damage they cause in terms of pollution. Keeping things in the air requires way more energy than moving them over land. And there are other negative externalities (noise and visual pollution), and also physical danger (these things might crash or collide).

> And let's not forget to tax the damage they cause in terms of pollution. Keeping things in the air requires way more energy than moving them over land.

What are you comparing this to? Does this include the energy and pollution needed to move a human, and a vehicle to safely accommodate that human?

> And there are other negative externalities (noise and visual pollution), and also physical danger (these things might crash or collide).

Are these not also the case for human-driven vehicles, which endanger more people (if a motorbike crashes then the rider has low odds), and create noise and visual pollution? I assume the latter means "I don't like how it looks"; if so then does a road look nicer than a drone your eye can't resolve unless you're fairly close to it?

Air transportation can only compete with cars in terms of pollution when a lot of mass is transported (e.g. for an aircraft with 300 passengers versus a 4-person car, pollution per passenger is about equal). For small transport, cars win by a large margin.

I think bikes might be better, than an organ stranded god knows where when a drone has fallen out the sky.

People will just steal the drones, I'm sure there's huge demand for organs.

If by 'vaporware' you mean decent chance that it happens, then yes.

It's a legit thing that's happening here. It may or may not come to fruition.

Drone delivery itself isn't vaporware, and will almost certainly happen. However, the title referring to "the biggest drone superhighway" is the kind of BS the current UK government likes to put out. I am surprised it isn't sold as some kind of direct benefit of Brexit. If you read the article, it is about a small amount of funding to scale up trial drone delivery. As the article implies a lot more research and investment is needed to scale up drone deliveries to an industrial scale, beyond isolated success stories.

It will be delivered right after the bridge to ireland, or the garden in the middle of the thames or the oven ready brexit deal we are all waiting for...

A substance-free eye-catching gimmick? from this UK government? /s

It's not quite as stupid as this gimmick ( https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/sep/14/boris-johnso... ) but there's no surprise here.