From Thursday, Telangana Government will start the trials of delivering medicines and vaccines through drones under the ‘Medicine From The Sky’ project. The trial flights will be conducted from September 9 to October 10 at Vikarabad (Hyderabad), and a majority of them will be by tech start-up Skye Air Mobility. This will make Telangana the first state in the country to start trials of Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) drone flights for delivery of COVID-19 vaccines.
According to the Telangana government, the Medicine From The Sky (MFTS) project’s first two days of trials will be flying in the visual line of sight, which involves drones flying between 500 and 700 meters from the base and they can be seen with the naked eye.
Delhi-based drone delivery tech firm Skye Air Mobility has tied up with Blue Dart to initiate a three-phase trial for Telangana Government that starts with flying drones, each carrying 175 vaccines. BVLOS drone flights are those that go beyond 500-700 metres from the eye’s vision or beyond the visual line of sight.
From September 11 onwards, BVLOS drone flights will take place for 9-10 km distances. These flights will be with consignments of vaccines, medical samples and other healthcare items, it said.