Google’s Project Wing delivery drone appears in video

Project Wing’s drone, Google’s answer to Amazon’s drone delivery service Prime Air, has been captured on video. The images show a test scenario in which the drone hovers over its target, then lowers a package via a line and takes off again.

The images were shot by Aaref Hilaly, head of the venture capital firm Sequoia, who posted them on Twitter. “The first steps towards drone delivery. Thanks to Google X,” he writes. Google X is the company’s division where such experimental projects are developed. The tweet was also retweeted by Google CEO Sundar Pichai after posting. Hilaly also says that the intention is that the drone will soon be able to cover 5 miles in 5 minutes. Converted that comes out at 97 kilometers per hour.

Watching baby steps or drone delivery, courtesy of Google X (5 miles in 5 mins is the promise) #zg15 pic.twitter.com/Xk2KyTRURP

— Aaref Hilaly (@aaref) October 19, 2015

The drone seems to be somewhere between a quadcopter and an ordinary RC plane. It is precisely because of this different design that Google’s drone can probably reach the speeds that Hilaly is talking about. No date has yet been announced when Google’s service should come into effect. The same goes for Amazon Prime Air. Both companies are not only bringing drone technology to fruition, but also changing existing laws and regulations and adding new ones.