Google Flying High With Project Wing

Google seems to making decent progress in its Project Wing, the home delivery drone program. The project aims the drone to fly five miles in five minutes.

A latest test, caught on camera by Sequoia Capital venture capitalist Aaref Hilaly, shows a quadcopter drone shape with propellers lining its edge, The Guardian reported. The video shows the drone hovering and lowering a package to the floor.

Hilaly tweeted, “Watching baby steps of drone delivery, courtesy of Google X (5 miles in 5 mins is the promise)”.

Google announced last year that its advanced-research arm, Google X, is developing a system of drones to deliver goods.

Google faces competition from Amazon, the retail giant, which is also developing drones for making package deliveries.

“We're excited about Prime Air — a future delivery system from Amazon designed to safely get packages into customers' hands in 30 minutes or less using small unmanned aerial vehicles”, Amazon said in its website.

The news comes at a time when the U.S. government is “getting serious” about drone regulation, Mashable reported.  The U.S. Department of Transportation (DoT) announced on Monday it will require all drones to be registered in order to get hold of all those who are responsible for breaking the law.

“Finding the drone has not been as much of a problem as finding the person who was using the drone,” said US transportation secretary Anthony Foxx.

Drone flights are highly restricted by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) in the UK. According to the current legislation, drones cannot be flown within 50m of a building or a person – or within 150m of any built-up area. Moreover, the maximum flight height is also only 122m (400 ft), and the drone must remain within line of sight and less than 500m from the pilot. Commercial drone pilots must complete a training course and apply for a permit from the CAA.