How do you scale drone deliveries?  Zing drone delivery may have the answer, with a platform that allows licensed drone pilots from around the country to use their DJI drones, a Zing delivery kit, and an app to accept drone delivery jobs from consumers.  Now, FL-based Zing announces that they will join the BEYOND program, the next step in the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Integration Pilot Program, to test their platform in Kansas.

“The Kansas Department of Transportation (KDOT) has partnered with Zing to test package delivery operations through the FAA’s new BEYOND program. The program is focusing on expanding operations that are Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS), improving public perception of UAS, and quantifying the economic and societal impacts of these advanced operations,” says a Zing press release.

“It is an honor to be a part of the exclusive group of partners in Kansas who will be testing and implementing these cutting edge operations. We are grateful for the opportunity to be one of the first to implement and scale package delivery use cases that are Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS). We are especially excited to be testing and implementing NASA’s Unmanned Traffic Management (UTM) system into our end-to-end drone delivery platform,” said Ian Annase, Founder and CEO of Zing.

The Zing drone delivery platform offers a new application for a proven system.  Companies like Uber and Lyft have already proven the value of peer to peer networks in the transportation industry.  With an app for pilots and one for consumers, Zing is developing the peer to peer business model for drone delivery.  Drone delivery has been slow to scale: still limited primarily to experimental projects with specialized drones. The Zing drone delivery platform, using an existing network of Part 107 pilots and their ubiquitous DJI commercial, off the shelf (COTS) drones, could spread drone delivery across the country – fast.

Zing has made amazing progress in a short time.  Launched by Kickstarter campaign in February 2019, the company integrated AirMap into their platform for airspace intelligence a few months later, offered their platform for public beta, and executed their first flight by June of that year.  With their participation in BEYOND, Zing drone delivery joins major players in the drone industry with an idea that could bring drone delivery to a neighborhood near you.