Amazon Prime Air plans to start drone deliveries on Jacksonville’s west side in early December, according to a local pilot who photographed Amazon’s airspace map at a public meeting at Jacksonville International Airport this week. Amazon has not announced Jacksonville, and the December timing comes from that pilot’s account of the meeting.
Meredith Holladay posted the slide to the Craig Airport Pilots Association’s Facebook group. She wrote that most of the room was military and police, that the red zones on the map are no-fly areas up to 400 feet (122 meters), and that the drones will fly seven days a week, in daytime visual weather only.
Amazon says its Prime Air systems continuously take in the ADS-B position signals that crewed aircraft broadcast. Holladay wrote that the drones have no ADS-B Out of their own, so pilots won’t see them in ForeFlight.
Amazon’s SJA1 Map Puts the Launch Pad Beside Herlong Airport
The slide is headed SJA1, the code Amazon uses for its same-day delivery center at 1700 Imeson Road in west Jacksonville, which opened in October 2025. Holladay placed the launch site just northeast of Herlong Recreational Airport (HEG), with Whitehouse Navy Outlying Field printed on the sectional to the northwest.
Holladay shared the photo in the Craig Airport Pilots Association group, where pilots traded questions about range and altitude. The Jax Daily Record tied the SJA1 code to the Imeson Road building through city permits, and Action News Jax reported its October opening. Herlong is the Jacksonville Aviation Authority’s recreational field, home to light sport aircraft, skydiving and gliders. The biggest red block on Amazon’s slide covers the Whitehouse runways, and more red and orange shapes crowd the Herlong side of the map. Amazon’s operations page says its no-fly zones cover runways, heliports, glider ports and RC flying clubs, plus areas of increased aviation activity.
Holladay put the service radius at about 6.5 miles (10.5 kilometers), with the black ring on the slide as its edge. That is a mile short of the 7.5-mile (12-kilometer) range in every FAA review of the MK30. Her daytime-only limit is tighter than the FAA’s approval elsewhere in Florida, too: 6 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. The slide’s footer calls it Amazon proprietary and confidential trade secret information, an odd label for page 24 of a deck shown to a room of pilots, military and police.
The FAA Has Published No Environmental Review for Jacksonville
The FAA’s Florida environmental assessment, signed June 1, 2026, covers six Amazon hubs: Ruskin, Tampa, Orlando, Tamarac, Riviera Beach and Miami. Jacksonville is not one of them, and the agency’s drone review page, last updated September 24, lists no Jacksonville document.
That is the same gap DroneXL found two days ago when Amazon started preparing a Tallahassee hub. Since July 28 the FAA can check a new site against its national programmatic assessment with no site document and no comment period, the change behind Washington clearing the runway for 500 cities. Jacksonville is also missing from the sites and next launches in Amazon’s August 19 expansion announcement. Florida Statute 330.41 keeps the city out of flight paths and altitudes.
Amazon’s MK30 Reads Pilots’ ADS-B, and FAA Rules Keep It From Transmitting
Amazon’s systems take in ADS-B from crewed aircraft and feed it to automated conflict detection, backed by onboard detect-and-avoid the FAA approved. Sending is another matter: 14 CFR 91.225(h)(2) bars drones from ADS-B Out unless they fly a flight plan in contact with ATC or the FAA authorizes it.
Amazon’s operations page describes ADS-B going in, never out. If that holds at SJA1, Amazon’s system knows where an ADS-B-equipped Cessna is, and the Cessna’s pilot gets no traffic target for the MK30.
Neither Amazon’s numbers nor the FAA’s keep the drones under the 200-foot ceiling one commenter asked about. Amazon’s operations page lists 205 to 250 feet above ground on the way out and 325 to 370 feet on the way back. The FAA’s Florida review, written for the six other hubs, uses 180 to 279 feet outbound and 279 to 377 feet inbound for an aircraft with an 83.2-pound (37.7-kilogram) maximum takeoff weight. Neither document sets Jacksonville’s numbers.
Amazon does share its traffic with some operators. Its operations page says Prime Air joins UAS traffic management networks with other drone operators and gives local first responders running beyond-visual-line-of-sight programs its planned routes and near-real-time drone positions. As of September 25, the page describes nothing similar for the pilot of a crewed aircraft. Holladay wrote that Amazon is apparently working with ForeFlight to connect the drones’ Bluetooth broadcast. Neither the operations page nor Amazon’s August 19 announcement mentions ForeFlight.
DroneXL’s Take
Amazon has published how its system receives pilots’ ADS-B. It has published nothing on what electronic traffic information Jacksonville’s pilots will get about its drones, and Holladay’s account says the answer, for now, is none. That gap opens right next to Herlong, whose gliders and skydivers need more than a slide at a meeting.
The FAA banned ADS-B Out on drones for a real reason. Its Remote ID rule warned that the projected number of drones could saturate ADS-B frequencies and hurt the system crewed aircraft rely on. Nobody wants thousands of delivery drones cluttering a Cessna’s traffic screen.
That rule doesn’t stop Amazon from doing the rest. It already gives first responders who fly drones a live picture of its fleet. It can publish the SJA1 route lines and altitude blocks for pilots in a form they can load. And if the ForeFlight work Holladay heard about is real, Amazon should say so in public and have it running before the first delivery, not after. An 83-pound aircraft working between 180 and 377 feet should show up somewhere a pilot looks. If you fly out of Herlong or Craig, ask Amazon for that route map now, while December is still ahead of you.
Sources: Craig Airport Pilots Association on Facebook, Amazon Prime Air, FAA Florida Environmental Assessment, FAA NEPA and Drones, 14 CFR 91.225, Jax Daily Record, Action News Jax, Federal Register.
DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo. Read our editorial standards.
