Want Instant Gratification? Wing Starts Drone Deliveries Near Dallas-Fort Worth This Week

Alphabet Wing delivery drone

Alphabet Wing drone delivery is arriving to the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

Wing

Wing, a drone delivery business run by tech giant Alphabet, will begin flying packages from a host of businesses to residents of the Dallas area next week, a dramatic expansion of a service conceived a decade ago. Wing’s parent company, Alphabet, also owns Google.

Starting Thursday, Wing will deliver packages from the pharmacy chain Walgreens to residents of Little Elm, Texas, which is north of the city. The drone company will provide deliveries for other businesses in the Dallas-Fort Worth suburb, including ice cream from Blue Bell Creameries, prescription pet medications from Easyvet and first-aid kits from Texas Health.

Wing’s expansion to Texas comes as the company racks up experience navigating the skies to make deliveries by drone. The company has delivered more than 200,000 packages, including 1,000 deliveries in a single day in Canberra, Australia, according to the company. Wing also makes deliveries in Helsinki, Finland, and Christiansburg, Virginia.

The Dallas-Fort Worth area could prove busier than regions previously serviced by Wing. The area has a regional population of about 7 million, and Wing says its airspace is much more complicated. Drones have the potential to make speedier deliveries than trucks and cars because they can whisk over traffic and houses instead of sitting in traffic.

To succeed broadly, though, drone delivery must overcome regulatory and safety obstacles. Wing’s drones, which carry one package at a time, take off vertically from a “nest” using an array of 12 upward-pointing propellers. Four forward-pointing propellers on a conventional wing accelerate the aircraft horizontally at speeds up to 70mph, an approach that’s quieter and more energy efficient than conventional quadcopter designs.

When it reaches its destination, the drone hovers at an altitude of 23 feet and reels its package down on a cable into a customer’s backyard. Wing drones can deliver small packages, such as a book or cup of coffee. Customers order using a Wing app on their phones.

Amazon, Flytrex, Manna, Zipline, MissionGo, UPS and Wingcopter are working on similar delivery drones.