Many people’s expectations of a delivery drone is a small, portable quadcopter that descends at their doorstep with a faint buzz, depositing goodies they’ve ordered  online, then zooming back to the store. Indeed, there are already prototypes pitched and developed by the likes of Amazon and DHL, but Boeing is about to change the perception to drone deliveries.

Boeing, the aerospace giant, is developing a bigger version of a delivery drone that could deliver about 500 pounds of cargo for up to 20 miles. Boeing is yet to figure where these aerial vehicles will be used, but chances are they will not end up on your doorstep. They are sort of just exploring a new technology for potential new markets, according to Pete Kunz, the technologist behind the project.

The car-sized Drone was built by a team of 50 engineers in about three months. The Boeing prototype comes with eight spinning blades measuring 6 feet from tip to tip and weighs a whopping 747 pounds. The navigation components and software were developed by Near Earth Autonomy.

The development team has completed the preliminary tests and recorded some impressive results. The completed and tested prototype can fly for about 15 minutes while carrying 150 pounds and they intend to push this to 500-pound capability real soon. They foresee a speed of between 60 mph and 70 mph on their final product before releasing it to the market. At the moment, the team is focusing on building the autonomous skills of their first prototype.

The question of when the final commercial release will be done or even what exactly the drones will be used for is still open-ended. They however, foresee applications in dangerous situations such as delivering supplies to offshore oil rigs which often require expensive helicopters and equally costlier pilots. There are also potential applications for military operations.

So while you might not see this giant drone at your doorstep, it has plenty of other practical delivery applications that fall between the shoe sized package and the bulk shipments transported at sea. Industry experts have already observed that this drone size might have more practicality in real life compared to the smaller drones. Anything that can reach isolated islands only connected by ferries to the mainland or oil rigs is much easier to put into practical application.

Additionally, regulation and politics are less likely to get in the way of commercialization of these kinds of drones given that they will be operating in more rural environments where safety isn’t a big concern.  It will be interesting to see what Boeing comes up with next.

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