Amazon’s Drone News: Company Designing & Testing Machines Faster than FAA Can Regulate

For quite some time now, Amazon has been endeavoring hard to make its drone project a success. However, this was being severely opposed by the United State's Federal Aviation Administration, fighting it every step of the way.

According to Tech Radar, regardless of the specific victories, which have been well-publicized, the federal government in the United States seems to be lagging behind its counterparts in Europe, especially with regards to drones. In fact, Amazon Global Public Policy vice-president Paul Misener told the Senate sub-committee on Tuesday that the U.S. now faces the threat of slipping even further.

It seems that currently Amazon is designing as well as testing new drones more rapidly compared to the FAA's pace in regulating them.

On an average, various other countries usually take anything between one and two months to approve all the categories of Amazon drones for testing. On the other hand, according to Misener, the FAA took more a year to approve a single drone model, which is now long obsolete.

Misener said, "We don't test it anymore," adding, "We've moved on to more advanced designs that we already are testing abroad."

In fact, the FAA has proposed a number of other regulations, which, if implemented, would make it mandatory for drones be controlled by humans and always in sight of their pilots. According to the report, this displays an understandable, but likely misguided, doubt regarding the technology.

According to a report by The Verge, Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) may possibly introduce a bill that may accelerate the process, while Amazon has hinted that Congress might be able to influence the FAA to move faster in approving the drone designs.

However, as of now, though, U.S. residents will have to wait for some more time to have autonomous drones that drop packages on their doorsteps.