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Could Drones replace Postman Pat?

With Amazon and other disruptive retailers now testing the possibilities of drone deliveries, the hapless postman must know his days handing over one package a day to the residents of Greendale are numbered.

In April Amazon started testing Amazon Prime Air, its futuristic delivery service, after the US Federal Aviation Administration gave the ecommerce giant the go-ahead. The aim of Prime Air is to deliver goods seven days a week within 30 minutes or less of placing an order. “We can carry objects we think up to 5 lbs. which covers up to 86 percent of the items that we deliver,” said Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos. “These (drones) are autonomous, you give them instructions of which GPS coordinates to go to, and they take off and they fly to those GPS coordinates.”

In July, Amazon revealed the next stage of its plan: to persuade the authorities to set aside a drone airspace corridor from 200ft to 400ft for the exclusive use of autonomous drones. This audacious plan is still just a proposal – but has both exciting and concerning possibilities.

Amazon is not the only one to dream. Israeli design student Kobi Shikar from the Shenkar College of Engineering and Design has come up with the Transwheel, a clever one-wheeled, road-trundling drone which has arms to hold packages. A series of them can be used to carry larger packages. Say your goodbyes, Pat…