Draft:Flytrex Drone Delivery

Flytrex Aviation Ltd., is a Tel Aviv-based company that operates an online food ordering service using drone delivery. The company operates in the United States, focusing its service in the suburbs. The company designs and manufactures its certified drone delivery systems, as well as operates its own food ordering marketplace.



History
Founded in 2013 by Amit Regev and Yariv Bash (former Co-founder and CEO of SpaceIL, a Google Lunar XPRIZE winner). It originally designed and sold a cellular-based black-box flight telemetry logging for off-the-shelf consumer drones, supporting mostly DJI drones.

In 2016 the company shifted from its consumer-focused line of products and started developing its drone delivery service, partnering with aha.is, Iceland's largest eCommerce service, to launch its first drone-based food delivery service. The first implementation included delivering food orders on a single flight route connecting two points in Reykjavik, Iceland.

In 2018 Flytrex partnered with the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) and was one of the few companies selected to participate in the FAA’s Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Integration Pilot Program (IPP), designed to test and evaluate the integration of commercial drone operations into the US National Airspace (NAS).. In early 2019 it launched two drone delivery stations in Raeford and Fayetteville, North Carolina, to test its technology and provide actionable information to the FAA and US Department of Transportation (USDOT).

In October 2021, Flytrex opened its first commercial drone delivery station in Holly Springs, North Carolina. The station is located at Kite Realty Group’s Holly Springs Towne Center. As of November 2023 the company serves residents within 2.75 miles of its delivery station. According to the company, 1 in every 3 households in the area has used the service.

In March 2022, Flytrex opened a new station in Granbury, Texas, and in September 2022 in Durham, North Carolina.

Operations


Flytrex designs and manufactures its drones and uses third-party partners to pilot its drones. Its first partner, Causey Aviation Unmanned, received FAA approval to operate under Part 135 in January 2023. In November 2023, the company announced, through its long time partner Causey Aviation Unmanned, FAA approval to operate its drone delivery service Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) without the need for visual observers.

The service operates from strip malls, by establishing a drone delivery station in proximity to restaurants. With the current drone delivery system an operator picks up the order from the restaurant, loads the drone with the package, and the drone flies to the customer’s yard autonomously.

Drone specifications


Flytrex’s drone cruises at 32 mph (51.5 km/h) at an altitude of 230 feet (72 meters). The drone can fly 5 miles (8 km) round-trip, carrying up to 3 kg (6.6 lbs) worth of food. Each station can fly multiple drones simultaneously under the supervision of a single drone pilot.

With its six propellers, the drone takes off and automatically flies to the delivery address, using multiple location based technologies to locate the programmed delivery point. Upon arrival, the drone descends to 80 feet (24 meter), where it hovers and slowly lowers the cargo to the ground using a proprietary tether mechanism. The drones do not have cameras.

To uphold the strictest safety standards, all Flytrex drones are built with extensive redundancies allowing the drone to return to the station in case of a malfunction. The drone is also equipped with a parachute that deploys if a major failure occurs that prevents the drone from maintaining flight.

Criticism
Earlier versions of the system utilized fixed flight routes, resulting in several noise concerns from residents living in proximity to these flight routes. Recent updates to the system improved this by better utilizing the airspace, yielding better routes and noise distribution in its service area.

The company has yet to prove its model and ability to deliver at profit and was criticized for operating an investor-fueled frenzy.