Walgreens and Wing Aviation will test an on-demand airborne drone delivery service in Christiansburg, located in southwest Virginia, starting in October.
Wing, a member of the Alphabet family, was the first drone operator certified by the Federal Aviation Administration in April.
Eligible customers in Christiansburg, a town of more than 21,000 residents near Roanoke, Virginia, will be able to receive more than 100 Walgreen over-the-counter products via the drone service, according to a Walgreens press release.
Wing delivered Chipotle orders to nearby Virginia Tech staff and students in 2016. The eligible customers in the Walgreens test must also be FedEx Express customers who live within a designated delivery zone and opt-in to the Wing service.
Wing has also announced a drone delivery service in two suburban areas of Logan, Australia, set to begin soon.
The drones will be used to deliver the goods within minutes. They have a 3.3-foot wingspan and weigh 10.6 pounds without a package. A typical payload can be about 3 pounds. Wing has conducted 80,000 test flights with its drones.
Techcrunch described a typical drone flight as lasting 10 minutes with the drone flying up to 70 mph and within a range of six miles each way.
The drones will hover and lower a tether to pick up a package, which is hooked onto the line by a human operator. The drone then winches the package up and secures it onto itself. At the other end, the drone lowers the package to a designated location.
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