Zipline conducts first US BVLOS drone flight

The US BVLOS flight was conducted on 17 November in Salt Lake City, Utah. Zipline described the flight as a ‘major step towards drone delivery at scale across the US’.

It added that ‘the ability to fly without visual observers on the ground along flight routes is the result of meeting rigorous safety requirements laid out by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)’.

It follows FAA approval of Zipline’s ‘onboard perception system’, which the company said had already been ‘tested by flying tens of thousands of real-world miles’ elsewhere in the world.

This approval, as well as the subsequent flight, now marks the start of regular BVLOS drone flights by Zipline in Utah. The company said it will ‘soon expand that approach across its US operations’.

“Earlier this year Zipline became the first company in US history to receive approval from the FAA to leverage an onboard perception system to enable autonomous long-distance drone delivery flights, and today, we made history doing just that,” said Okeoma Moronu, Zipline’s Head of Global Aviation Regulatory Affairs.

“This means that Zipline can now go from serving a few thousand homes to serving hundreds of thousands of homes within the US. We thank the FAA for their leadership and support throughout this process,” she added.