They've already conquered the skies...now they're preparing to conquer your hunger!
The video above was made by DoDo, a Russian pizza company who will soon be offering delivery by remote-controlled drone. It's a novel idea - pizza companies could save a fortune on the delivery drivers that they no longer need to employ, and it would be pretty cool to receive a pizza from an RC helicopter that's just landed in your street.
However, we envision a couple of problems with the idea of pizza drones:
- Carrying a pizza around is like painting a great big bullseye on your back, and once people learn to recognise these pizza, they'll surely stop at nothing to bring them down and steal their precious cargo. Rocks will be thrown, BB pellets will be fired, and thousands of customers will go hungry because their pizza took a dangerous route through a nearby housing estate.
- We don't know about you, but we often order pizza simply because it's cold and wet outside and we can't be bothered walking to the shops. These drones will do fine on sunny days, but how will they fare when the wind's a-blowin' and the rain's a-rainin'? Not well, we'd wager.
- The drone in that video is only carrying one pizza - surely that tiny little gadget won't be able to handle our Family Feast for 4? Two large pizzas, wedges, chicken strips, a litre bottle of Coke...to paraphrase that chap from Jaws, "You're going to need a bigger helicopter thingy."
- How on Earth does the pilot/pizza guy navigate an RC drone all the way to his customer's house? Okay, you could perhaps use some kind of camera, but even if we assume that you can see where you're going, RC helicopters can only fly so far from their pilot. If your pizza parlour is two miles from the home of your hungry customer, the drone's RC range probably won't be enough to get the pizza to their door.
- Most pizza delivery guys use those insulated satchel things to keep the pizzas warm. Not only will your drone pizza be uninsulated and out in the open, it will be whizzing through the air at quite a clip - surely it will get cold before it finds its way to your mouth?
So, yeah, the pizza drone thing is a cool idea, but there are certainly still some kinks to be worked out. You'll probably still be opening the door to deliverymen for a year or two yet!
Want a drone of your own? It doesn't deliver pizza (sadly), but Gadget Inspector's nifty Micro Drone 2.0 is still a pretty awesome toy. Get yours now!
