Flirtey unveils new Eagle delivery drone [VIDEO] 

The saga of developing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs, or drones) to carry goods to customer homes continues in the United States with Nevada-based drone developer Flirtey’s unveiling of its “Flirtey Eagle” drone. 

Flirtey is excited to announce the Flirtey Eagle will be delivering to U.S. homes in 2019! https://t.co/3oWBd2F8Hr pic.twitter.com/NiaXNOvp1N

— SkyDrop (@GetSkyDrop) September 9, 2019

Earlier this week, the company released the first video of the Flirtey Eagle, which is designed to deliver packages to customers’ homes in less than ten minutes. The drone takes off and lands from the “Flirtey Portal” landing platform, which is small and enables scalable operations from stores across the U.S. The drone operates from the company’s autonomous software platform, which has been approved by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration for one remote pilot to fly up to ten drones. Furthermore, the company said the drone can operate in 95% of weather conditions and carry up to twice the payload of its major competitors, but did not provide specific information about these claims. 

Flirtey has worked with NASA, Johns Hopkins University of Medicine, Remote Area Medical, New Zealand Land Search & Rescue, Domino’s and 7-Eleven to conduct deliveries of medicine to rural healthcare clinics, ship-to-shore deliveries of medical samples and deliveries of retail and e–commerce items to consumer homes. The company also recently announced a partnership to launch the first automated external defibrillator (AED) drone delivery service in the U.S. 

Ultimately, Flirtey anticipates its drones will begin routine delivery demonstrations to homes in 4Q 2019. Whether regulatory requirements will allow for such deliveries in the U.S. remains to be seen.