Wendover Productions
2 HN recommenders · recommended in 4 months, 2019–2023
13:32 · 1.1M views · Jan 25, 2019
A Wendover Productions documentary-style video on how Zipline delivers blood and medical supplies by drone in Rwanda. It covers the catapult launch, parachute drop and the logistics behind it.
Offered as a clear, well-made look at a real, working drone-delivery system, often in answer to skepticism about delivery drones.
4 comments from Hacker News
Wendover Productions did a great video detailing this a few years back. It’s so cool what they’ve done. this video Also, Wendover have a fantastic Youtube channel that’s focused on global logistics. It’s endlessly fascinating and extremely well executed. Strongly recommended.
The catapult launches the drones into the air, which then parachute the package to the location. Real Engineering [1] and Wendover Productions [2] have really nice videos about their system currently deployed in Rwanda. [1]: [LINK] [2]: this video
There's a better video of the drones here: [LINK] Google's delivery drones combine a multirotor design with fixed-wings. It seems like an eminently sensible design to me; fixed-wing operation will be quieter and more power-efficient, allowing longer travel distances (unlike the early Amazon Prime Air videos [1]), while hover capability avoids the need to parachute the load (unlike the current Zipline drones [2]) and provides a hover-and-land-almost-anywhere capability I imagine is useful. Presumably the winch-down-the-load design reduces the risk of a user putting their hands into the blades - not to mention reducing the risk from customers choosing an inappropriate landing location; I imagine the drone can also jettison the winch cord if it gets caught on anything. It precludes delivering directly to apartment windows - but AFAIK no-one else is trying that either. It's a pity they haven't released clear info on these drones' range, round-trip time and weight carrying capacity. Which are of course critical to working out the profitability of a citywide coffee delivery service. [1] [LINK] [2] this video
Ironically one of the areas it _is_ being used successfully is in delivery of blood to some areas in Rwanda, but they're using fixed-wing drones and are even doing slingshot launches. [1] The economics are totally different, though. The "product" is very high value and has a short shelf life, so being able to deliver it quickly is a big benefit. On top of that, using a fixed-wing delivery vehicle and launching it with a human-powered slingshot makes it actually reasonably energy-efficient. [1] this video