Amazon delivery drones plague Texas town: ‘Sounds like a giant beehive’

Residents of a Texas suburb where Amazon is testing its delivery drones say the aerial vehicles make too much noise.

The mayor of College Station, a town about 100 miles northwest of Houston, sent a letter to the Federal Aviation Administration last month protesting the drones, which some residents have compared to a “giant beehive.”

College Station, which is best known as the home of Texas A&M University’s flagship campus, is a testing ground for Amazon, which hopes to perfect technology it says will allow drones to make product deliveries within an hour of customers to order them online. .

“Since the deployment in College Station, residents in the neighborhoods adjacent to Prime Air’s facility have expressed concern to the City Council about drone noise levels, particularly during takeoff and landing, as well as some delivery operations,” the College president wrote. , John Nichols. on paper.

Nichols’ letter was written in response to Amazon’s request to seek permission to expand its pilot program to 469 flights per day — up from the current level of 200 per day.

Amazon wants to make drone deliveries between 7am and 10pm – beyond the current daylight hours limit.

The retail giant also wants to increase the delivery area to a 174 square mile radius of its drone port – from its current operating range of 44 miles.

If Amazon’s request is approved, it would see up to 940 combined takeoffs and landings of drones delivering one package at a time — each weighing no more than five kilograms.

John Case, a resident of College Station, told CNBC that the buzzing noise of Amazon’s drones has become a nuisance.

“It looks like a giant beehive,” Case, a semi-retired orthodontist, told CNBC. “You know it’s coming because it’s so loud.”

According to Case, the drones are loud enough to wake up nurses, firefighters and police officers returning home after working the night shift.

Residents called on local lawmakers in College Station to intervene in Amazon’s expansion plans.

At a June city council meeting, a resident who lives “less than 500 feet from the launch pad” played a recording of a chainsaw to highlight the level of noise created by the drones.

“This is what Amazon is asking the FAA to approve,” Ralph Thomas Moore, the resident who played the chainsaw audio, told city council members in June.

“This is a huge invasion of our personal space and has a significant impact on everyone in the neighborhood.”

The city conducted its own audio test to assess the noise levels created by the drones. He found that the drones reached decibel levels between 47 and 61 – far less than chainsaws, which typically measure in at 125 decibels.

In 2013, then-Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announced that his company was planning to develop drone delivery through Prime Air with the goal of delivering packages within 30 minutes.

Two years later, the FAA gave Amazon permission to test its drones in the US on the condition that they stay within the pilot’s line of sight and fly during daylight hours.

But the drone program has struggled to gain momentum because of cost-cutting measures implemented by Bezos’ successor, Andy Jassy.

Another US test site – Lockeford, California, which is south of Sacramento – was abandoned by Amazon in April. The company did not cite a reason why it was winding down operations there.

Amazon said it would look to begin testing drones in Tolleson, Ariz., west of Phoenix. Regulators have yet to sign off on the project.

The Post has sought comment from Amazon.

A company spokesperson told CNBC: “We value the College Station community and consider local feedback wherever possible when making operational decisions about Prime Air.”

“We’re proud of the thousands of deliveries we’ve made and the hundreds of customers we serve,” the spokesperson added.