Walmart’s Drones Are Eyeing Tampa Backyards Next

Walmart is quietly turning Tampa Bay into a test runway, and this time the landing zone might be your lawn, as reported by Bizjournals.

The retail giant has filed plans with Hillsborough County to roll out drone delivery operations at up to seven Walmart stores across the Tampa area, partnering once again with Alphabet owned drone operator Wing.

While exact store locations are still being evaluated, Walmart and Wing have already begun coordinating with local government officials across the metro area, a clear sign that rotors are warming up.

A similar filing was submitted in Pasco County in late November for a Walmart location in New Port Richey, suggesting Tampa Bay is not just a dot on the map but a regional cluster in Walmart’s drone strategy.

How Walmart’s Drone Delivery Actually Works

Each participating Walmart store gets its own miniature drone airport, politely named a “nest,” built directly in the parking lot. These nests house between 12 and 18 Wing drones, each resting on charging pads while waiting for their next grocery run.

Once a customer places an eligible order, items are packed into a custom delivery box, attached to a Wing drone, and sent skyward. The drones fly up to 65 miles per hour and can operate within a six mile radius of the store, all while staying inside FAA rules.

Delivery is not a dramatic touchdown. Instead, the drone hovers above the destination, scans for obstacles, and gently lowers the package on a tether. All it needs is a clear space roughly the size of a picnic blanket, which is probably smaller than the area currently occupied by your Amazon boxes.

From order to delivery, the whole process takes 30 minutes or less. It took me longer to write this article than it would take you to order ice cream and a rotisserie chicken. That said, I wouldn’t order them together. These are drones with a box in their belly, after all. Temperature insulation probably isn’t their strong suit.

Tampa Joins a Growing Drone Delivery Club

Walmart announced back in June that Tampa would be part of a broader expansion that also includes Orlando, Atlanta, Charlotte, and Houston. Atlanta’s drone delivery service officially launched in early December, making Tampa one of the next cities in line.

According to Walmart, this marks the first time a major retailer has scaled drone delivery across five states. Before this push, the service was limited to Northern Arkansas and the Dallas Fort Worth area.

Wing pilots do not fly one drone at a time. Instead, they oversee multiple drones across multiple facilities from centralized command centers, managing routes, safety, and deliveries simultaneously.

Popular drone delivered items so far include eggs, fruit, pet food, and ice cream, which finally has a chance of arriving before it turns into soup.

Walmart and Wing plan to expand drone delivery to an additional 100 stores nationwide, making this less of an experiment and more of a long term logistics play.

DroneXL’s Take

This is not about novelty anymore. Walmart is treating drone delivery like infrastructure, not a stunt, and Tampa Bay is becoming part of a much larger logistics chessboard. Wing’s system is mature, quiet, and already proven in multiple markets, which makes this expansion feel inevitable rather than ambitious.

The real question now is not whether drones will deliver your groceries, but how quickly customers will stop thinking of it as futuristic and start thinking of it as normal. When eggs fall from the sky and nobody looks up, you know the tech has landed.

Photo credit: Walmart