[cmurf]

Amazon's been ripping on the FAA since the beginning, about how the FAA needs to do XYZ+5001 things. And yet Amazon has hardly come up with a plan of its own to answer some basic questions such as yours.

FAR 91.119 in part says: "no person may operate an aircraft below...an altitude allowing, if a power unit fails, an emergency landing without undue hazard to persons or property on the surface."

There are numerous regulations that should apply to drones, just as there are ones that shouldn't, and ones yet to be written unique to drones. But has Amazon provided any input on the existing regulatory paradigm? I haven't heard anything but whining.

I don't see how, or why, an autonomous aircraft should be exempt from the regulation cited above. It's the same thing we expect of other aircraft. We're talking about ~50lb (plus or minus, what, 40lb?), at up to 400' above the ground, at up to 100mph. As a pilot of both single and multi-engine airplanes, I'm very appropriately expected to be at an altitude and location that in the event of a power plant failure I can prevent on-ground injuries. We can't just let companies throw up their hands and say "yeah, it's a problem we're working on, but we must not have deliveries impeded in the meantime!"