Delivery Drones are Descending on Dallas/Fort Worth

Dallas/Fort Worth is one of the top 10 tech centers and one of the 20 fastest-growing metro areas in the U.S., and it’s also home to tech giants including RS. So, it’s no surprise that cutting-edge delivery drone and drone entertainment companies are establishing roots and taking to the skies over this techy, Texan metropolis.

According to a recent report by the Brookings Institution that ranks American cities based on the number of workers in six technology industries — computer systems design and services, software publishing, semiconductor and component manufacturing, data processing and hosting, computer equipment manufacturing and other information services — the Dallas/Fort Worth metro area is one of the top 10 tech centers in America. It’s also one of the 20 fastest-growing metro areas in the U.S., clocking in at number eight, according to U.S. Census data. And while outsiders may find those statistics surprising, locals have long been neighbors with tech giants including RS, AT&T, Texas Instruments and Jacobs Engineering — all of which are headquartered there — and have watched local tech startups like Oculus rise to international acclaim. So, the fact that this techy, Texan metro area is also home to a growing number of high-tech drone companies, including two new drone delivery services and an aerial entertainment company, is totally on-brand.

Delivery Drones

Wing, which is owned by Google, is the first commercial drone delivery service to launch in a major American metropolitan area. It began servicing two Dallas suburbs, Little Elm and Frisco, on April 7 of this year, and although both cities are roughly 30–45 minutes outside of Dallas and Fort Worth, they’re still complex urban settings that are strikingly different than the smaller cities, towns and rural areas that previously hosted drone delivery pilot programs. In fact, according to 2020 U.S. Census data, Frisco is currently the fastest-growing large city in America.

Wing is currently operating out of a Walgreens in Little Elm and providing on-demand drone deliveries to homes in select neighborhoods within a four-mile range. The service doesn’t require any signups or delivery fees and customers can currently have a Wing drone deliver more than 100 different health and wellness items from Walgreens or a pint of ice cream from Blue Bell Creameries, which Wing says arrive quickly enough to avoid melting en route, even in the hot southern sun. For now, ice cream deliveries are only available on Friday and Saturday afternoons, but Wing is actively working to expand its delivery area, add new retail partners and increase availability.

Soon, customers will also be able to have Wing drones deliver prescription pet medication from easyvet and first aid kits from local Texas Health medical centers. As part of its scalable growth plan, Wing plans to provide retail partners with small fleets of dedicated drones that their employees can summon with a tablet, clip the package to, and send on their way with a remote Wing employee supervising the delivery. Once those plans are in place, Wing expects to serve tens of thousands of suburban homes in Little Elm and Frisco neighborhoods within a six-mile radius of the origin point. Local residents can download the Wing app or subscribe to The Dallas Flyer newsletter to be the first to know about future expansions.

Flytrex, an Israeli drone company headquartered in Tel Aviv, has been honing its ultrafast drone delivery technology since 2013. Flytrex successfully launched the world’s first fully autonomous urban drone delivery program in Reykjavik, Iceland, in 2017 and has been working with the North Carolina Department of Transportation and customers in three North Carolina cities —Fayetteville, Raeford and Holly Springs — to overcome autonomous drone delivery challenges in the U.S. since 2020. This pilot program was also a success and recently earned Flytrex delivery drones a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) waiver that will allow the company to expand its delivery service to a total of 10,000 home in cities across the state, satisfying growing consumer demand for instant gratification and reducing delivery traffic and emissions.

Now, thanks to an expanded partnership with Brinker International, a Dallas-based restaurant chain that owns more than 1,600 restaurants in 20 countries — including Chili’s Grill & Bar and Maggiano’s Little Italy, as well as their respective virtual brands, It’s Just Wings and Maggiano’s Italian Classics — Flytrex is setting a flight path for Granbury, Texas, which is about 45 minutes outside of Fort Worth. The Granbury pilot program will start with It’s Just Wings deliveries and serve customers within a mile of the takeoff location, but Flytrex aims to expand delivery services to more restaurants, as well as retail and grocery stores, before long.

When a customer places an order in the Flytrex app, a Flytrex employee, working from the parking lot of the participating restaurant, grabs the order, clips the bag to a cable and loads it into the drone delivery box, which is rated to hold up to 6.6 pounds. The ultrafast autonomous drone then flies to the delivery destination at a speed of 32 miles per hour while being monitored by a trained drone operator. It arrives at the drop zone within just five minutes and then hovers about 80 feet off the ground, lowers the bag to the ground, releases the clip and returns to the restaurant.

Last year, the Flytrex pilot program in North Carolina delivered more than 12,000 items from restaurants and retailers, surpassing the delivery totals for every other drone delivery company in the U.S. Granbury residents interested in Flytrex drone deliveries can download the Flytrex appto see if they’re eligible.

Suburban drone delivery services like Wing and Flytrex are quickly gaining popularity due to their ability to significantly outpace competing delivery services, like DoorDash and Uber Eats, as well as their ability to reduce traffic and emissions and their comparatively low fees. In response to growing demand, the FAA is considering regulations that would allow drones to fly beyond operators’ line of sight, which would significantly expand drone delivery areas.

The FAA’s Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) committee, which was established in June 2021 to analyze the current regulatory framework for uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS) and identify appropriate criteria for enabling the safe, scalable and environmentally friendly BVLOS UAS operations in the U.S., published a new report on March 10. The FAA has only given one company, American Robotics, approval for BVLOS UAS operation without human operators onsite under the current regulatory framework, but it has granted a growing number of other autonomous drone companies, including Wing and Flytrex, waivers for BVLOS operation on specified flight paths monitored by observers. The new report, summarized in part here, is an important step towards standardizing and safeguarding BVLOS UAS operation and supporting delivery drone market expansion in the U.S.

Branding and Entertainment Drones

But delivery drone services aren’t the only cutting-edge drone companies taking flight in the Dallas/Fort Worth metro area. Sky Elements Drone Shows is based in Fort Worth and specializes in drone light shows for branding and entertainment purposes. The company got off the ground in 2021 and uses top-of-the-line drones equipped with super bright, color-matching LEDs that are visible for miles to present vivid, creative and eco-friendly light shows featuring a series of two- and three-dimensional figures comprised of 50 to 300 or more drones at events extending throughout Texas and beyond, including municipal fireworks displays, arts and music festivals, weddings, trade shows, conferences, grand openings and professional sporting events.

Sky Elements Drone Shows is also behind the giant floating QR codes that some residents of the Dallas/Fort Worth metro area have seen hovering in the sky. These are typically used for branding purposes, to promote client content or their own business capabilities.

But on April 1^st of this year, in celebration of April Fool’s Day, Sky Elements Drone Shows launched a giant, 300-drone QR code that floated 400 feet above Dallas, could be seen and scanned from miles in every direction, and Rickrolled the entire city (i.e., tricked people into clicking through to a link that, instead of delivering anything expected, played a clip of Rick Astley’s 1987 hit song “Never Gonna Give You Up”).

To see a Sky Elements drone show for yourself, check out their calendar of public events. For more information about standard and custom drone light shows, contact the team at Sky Elements Drone Shows.

Drone Components

Drones are becoming increasingly ubiquitous, taking to the skies to make deliveries, promote brands and entertain individuals and crowds alike, which is causing the competition for market dominance to soar. Drone manufacturers, maintainers and hobbyists alike can find many of the key components they need to engineer high-quality, cutting-edge drones — including the brushed motors utilized in small drones, the brushless motors utilized in larger drones, GPS modules, accelerometers, obstacle avoidance sensors including infrared (IR) sensors, LiDAR sensors and time of flight sensors, and lithium polymer batteries — in stock at RS and can reach out to our highly experienced technical support team for assistance with component selection and device designs.