MERIDIAN, Idaho — Amazon's drone delivery program is bringing a new kind of air traffic to the Treasure Valley, and for some other low-flying aircraft, that means thinking a little differently about where they're able to fly.
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Greg Ashton is a hot air balloon pilot and runs Treasure Valley Balloon Rides. He called Idaho News 6 with concerns about how the new Amazon delivery drones could affect his hot air balloon business.
"I've had lots of drones, but I haven't had big drones that drop packages," Ashton said.
Ashton has been flying hot air balloons for nearly 50 years, taking passengers up from different parts of the valley. But last week, one of those flights changed after Ashton learned Amazon's delivery drones had started flying out of Nampa.
"Sometimes we fly from Nampa, Star, Middleton, Caldwell, Meridian," Ashton explained.
"It was a concern to us because we don't want to collide with a drone in the airspace when we're flying and we were not sure what the technology is of the drones. Can they see objects and avoid them?" Ashton told me.
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Ashton didn't want to be the first to test that out. For now, he has changed his launch site, taking off from Ladybird Park near the Boise Fairgrounds to put more distance between his flights and the area where he understands the delivery drones are operating.
"If we're flying over Meridian or something like that and then we got a 40-mile-an-hour drone coming at us, it had potential to be scary," Ashton expressed.
After Ashton contacted me, I reached out to Amazon to help get answers to his questions. Amazon tells me its Prime Air drones use cameras and sensors, along with what it calls a detect-and-avoid system that continuously monitors the airspace around the drone and allows it to make real-time safety decisions.
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An Amazon representative says it's designed to detect other aircraft, even if that aircraft has no radio or computers to communicate with, which includes hot air balloons.
Ashton says he's also been in contact with Amazon and plans to sit down with them, the FAA, and other members of the hot air balloon community.
"They're going to learn about us. We're going to learn about them, and then we're going to hopefully coexist in the same airspace," Ashton said hopefully.
After decades of flying here, Ashton says he doesn't want new technology to change that.
"This is our favorite place to fly. It is in the Treasure Valley," Ashton told me.
Ashton said he will be meeting with Amazon in the next couple of weeks and hopes they can work out a plan that allows both balloons and drones to fly safely.
