Wing's newest delivery drone can legally fly six miles outside its pilot's line of sight - and its primary cargo so far has been potatoes.
The Hummingbird 7000W-B weighs under 15 pounds and uses 16 propellers - four for horizontal thrust, twelve for lift - to reach a top speed of 60 miles per hour. It carries up to 2.7 pounds per trip within a six-mile radius, and the FAA has cleared Wing to fly it beyond the operator's direct line of sight. One early tester got access to the drone after a neighbor added him and several other local dads to a group chat looking for ways to entertain bored kids on a Sunday morning. Since then, the drone's main job has been dropping off potatoes on command.
Beyond-line-of-sight clearance is the regulatory bottleneck that has kept drone delivery a novelty rather than a utility for most of the past decade. Wing clearing that bar, even for errands as small as produce, suggests the groundwork for routine suburban drone delivery is further along than the splashy pilot programs from Amazon and Walmart have let on.
For now, the most advanced use of beyond-line-of-sight flight in American airspace is keeping a handful of kids occupied with root vegetables.