Amazon put an MK30 in front of Richmond, Virginia residents on Thursday and told them Prime Air drone delivery is coming to Henrico County, Hanover County and the city, before it has the approvals to fly there. Carmen Simboli, an Amazon aerospace integration specialist, told a community meeting at Richmond Raceway that the company is still waiting on federal and landlord sign-off, and that Richmond joining Amazon’s year-end site count is possible rather than confirmed.

That makes Richmond the second Prime Air site in two days that was missing from Amazon’s own expansion list. This morning DroneXL reported on Tracy, California, which Amazon revealed to the Los Angeles Times. Neither Virginia nor California appeared on the list Amazon published on August 19, when it promised nearly 500 US cities and towns by December 31.

The Richmonder’s Rich Griset and Radio IQ’s Brad Kutner covered the event. Richmond’s existence as a Prime Air site so far rests on a community-meeting RSVP page, a statement to Richmond BizSense and what Simboli said in the room.

Amazon Ties Richmond Service to a 7.5-Mile Circle Around RIC4

Eligible addresses will sit within 7.5 miles (12 kilometers) of Amazon’s RIC4 fulfillment center, just north of Richmond Raceway in Henrico County, The Richmonder reported. Properties near Richmond International Airport are excluded. Amazon is seeking federal and landlord approvals before it launches.

RIC4 is not a purpose-built drone pad. It is a 2.7 million square foot (251,000 square meter) robotics fulfillment center that opened in March 2024 with about 1,000 employees, developed by Hillwood with Amazon as tenant. That tenancy is presumably where the landlord approval comes in, though Simboli did not say so. Tracy follows the same pattern: Amazon’s California return flies from an existing distribution center too, not from a hand-built site like Lockeford was.

The terms match what Amazon publishes everywhere. Packages of 5 pounds (2.3 kilograms) or less that fit in a large shoebox qualify, which Amazon says covers 60 percent of its most frequently purchased items. Prime members get free delivery on orders over $50 and pay $2.99 below that. Non-members pay $4.99. Amazon says most orders arrive within an hour, some in 30 minutes.

Simboli Puts the MK30 at 78 Pounds Empty and 205 to 250 Feet in Cruise

Simboli gave numbers Amazon rarely volunteers. The MK30 stands 5.5 feet (1.7 meters) tall, spans 5 feet (1.5 meters) and weighs 78 pounds (35 kilograms) empty, per The Richmonder, with a triple-cell battery, six motors and six cameras. Simboli declined to say what one costs to build or run.

The empty weight lines up with the record. FAA documents put the MK30’s maximum takeoff weight at 83.2 pounds (37.7 kilograms), a figure DroneXL cited in its coverage of the 500-city plan, and 78 pounds plus a 5-pound package gets you there.

The altitude figures are less tidy. Simboli said the drones are cleared to 400 feet (122 meters) but generally cruise at 205 to 250 feet (62 to 76 meters) while delivering, per The Richmonder. Radio IQ’s account of the same evening has Simboli describing a 400-foot flight path. Amazon’s West regional manager told the Los Angeles Times this week that Tracy’s drones cruise at 250 to 400 feet. Same aircraft, one week, three bands. It is a briefing inconsistency, not a safety finding, but a homeowner under the flight path will ask.

On noise, Simboli compared takeoff and landing to an electric leaf blower. “When it flies overhead, it’s almost imperceptible,” he said, likening it to an electric toothbrush held at arm’s length. Amazon’s own line is that the MK30 makes half the perceived noise of its predecessor. The one I stood next to at XPONENTIAL Europe in Düsseldorf this April was on a show stand, not in the air, so the leaf blower stays on Simboli’s word until Richmond residents report back.

Amazon Left Virginia Off Its Own 500-City List

Amazon’s August 19 announcement named 11 live sites in seven states and five metros coming next: Chicago, Atlanta, Cleveland, Syracuse and Boise. Virginia was not on that page, and neither was California. Both surfaced within ten days through local reporting, so the list understates Amazon’s pipeline.

The Richmonder’s account does not say which federal approval is outstanding, and Simboli did not specify beyond regulations and approvals needing to be in place. Amazon already flies its other sites under a Part 135 air carrier certificate and BVLOS authorization, so the open item is presumably site-level, but Amazon has not said what it is waiting for or from whom. Radio IQ adds a local layer: Henrico County and the city of Richmond will have to approve the operation too. Until Amazon names the items, nobody in Henrico can judge whether a December launch is realistic.

Delegate Destiny LeVere Bolling, whose district includes RIC4, attended Thursday and told Radio IQ that Amazon assured her the drones would add jobs rather than replace them. She said she could only take the company at its word, and that people she knows lost jobs when RIC4 was automated. Simboli told the station that Prime Air adds about 10 jobs per site to run the fleet.

The arithmetic has not changed since August 19. Each MK30 site draws a circle of roughly 175 square miles (453 square kilometers), and Amazon counts every municipality inside it. Getting from 11 sites to nearly 500 cities and towns in four months means announcing a lot of circles quickly, and Richmond and Tracy are what that looks like on the ground: a raceway club room on a Thursday evening, a car show on a Saturday.

Simboli Answers the Pool Drop and the Privacy Question

Asked about videos of Amazon drones dropping packages into swimming pools, Simboli said the number of such incidents is very small and that Amazon has learned from them. He did not give a number. The best-known case is the August 17 MK30 pool drop in Richmond, Texas.

Different Richmond. That one is a Houston suburb. DroneXL’s analysis of that drop argued the MK30’s hover-and-release design is the reason it keeps missing.

On privacy, Simboli said Amazon does not live-monitor its drone cameras and does not share what they collect; the imagery exists for flight and delivery safety. The six cameras aboard are there to find a clear drop zone and avoid obstacles, which is what Amazon’s Detect-and-Avoid system does. That system is important enough to Amazon that it quit the Commercial Drone Alliance in March over whether such systems should be mandatory.

Simboli also fielded a question about collisions with public safety drones. Chesterfield County police started flying drones as first responders in July, per The Richmonder. Simboli said there is no common solution yet, that Amazon is reaching out to first responder agencies, and that a drone traffic management system exists which others need to join to get a common operating picture. That matches where UTM stands in most US metros: it exists, and participation is voluntary.

DroneXL’s Take

Amazon is selling Richmond on a service it cannot yet legally start, and I think that is the right order. Put the aircraft on the carpet and take the pool question and the privacy question in public before the first flight, not after. Clay, New York got the harder version.

When Amazon asked Clay for a 176-square-mile zone in June, the town got a vote. Henrico residents got a Thursday evening and a Q&A, which is less, but it is more than the customer in Richmond, Texas got before an MK30 put a package in her pool.

What bothers me is the channel. Tracy came out through the Los Angeles Times on Saturday and Richmond through an RSVP page and a raceway club room on Thursday, and both are missing from the site list Amazon published ten days ago. My read is that Amazon does not announce a site until it is sure the site will fly, and it is not sure about Richmond. The Richmonder’s word for Simboli’s answer was possible. Every unannounced site is a site Amazon might not deliver by December, and the 500-city figure was built on delivering them.

The cruise altitude discrepancy is small, but it is the sort of detail that shows how fast this is moving. Amazon representatives briefed two communities in one week with three different numbers for where the drone flies over your roof. If Amazon is going to run this meeting in every metro it needs to reach 500 by December, it should hand the presenters the same sheet.

Watch Amazon’s Prime Air locations page, which the company says it updates as ZIP codes go live, for a Henrico entry before December 31. If it appears, Richmond counts toward the 500. If it does not, Richmond was one of the possibles that did not convert, and Simboli said as much on Thursday.

Sources: The Richmonder, Radio IQ, Richmond BizSense

DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo.