A resident of Spring, Texas, says about a dozen delivery drones fly over her home in the Bridgestone neighborhood every day and that the sound is driving her crazy. Chron, the Houston news site, published Theresa Gibson’s account on Friday, November 13, and identified the drones as Amazon’s.
Amazon’s public location list names one Prime Air site in Greater Houston. It is a warehouse on Harlem Road in Richmond, the town where an MK30 dropped a customer’s order into her pool in August, and it sits about 30 miles (48 kilometers) from Bridgestone. Amazon says its drones deliver within 7.5 miles (12 kilometers). Wing, which flies Walmart orders, has operated since July from a Supercenter about 5 miles (8 kilometers) from the neighborhood.
Amazon’s Listed Houston Hub Is 30 Miles From Bridgestone
Amazon lists Richmond, Texas, as its only Prime Air site in the Houston metro area, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) southwest of Bridgestone. The FAA’s environmental decision for Texas also covers an Amazon hub on FM 1960, roughly 6.7 miles (10.7 kilometers) away, that the list omits.
Gibson told Chron the drones were fascinating at first. “It sounds like a large swarm of bees,” she said, and it goes on all day. Chron wrote that her home is in the flight path of Amazon’s drone service. Its report does not say which Amazon hub the drones fly from or how the aircraft over Bridgestone were identified as Amazon’s. It says Amazon operates in four Texas cities, Houston among them.
Amazon’s location list, which DroneXL read on November 13, names Richmond for Houston, plus San Antonio, Richardson and Waco in Texas. The list runs behind. It still shows the Chicago and Boise areas as coming soon, and Amazon was flying from Markham, Illinois by October 26 and has flown from Nampa, Idaho since October 30. A launch in north Houston that Amazon has not announced would not appear on it either.
The paperwork for one exists. The FAA’s February 5 decision on Amazon’s Texas network covers six Houston-area hubs, each for up to 1,000 flights a day between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m. One of them is the SAH1 facility at 1202 East FM 1960. Another, HOU2 on Ella Boulevard, is about 9.6 miles (15.4 kilometers) from Bridgestone and outside the MK30’s delivery radius. DroneXL’s Amazon Prime Air tracker carries SAH1 as approved and not operating, because as of November 13 DroneXL has found no Amazon announcement, service map or local report that puts flights there. All distances here are straight lines to the Bridgestone neighborhood park, and the SAH1 figure uses the tracker’s coordinates for the site, which are approximate.
Wing Has Flown Walmart Orders Over Spring Since July
Wing added eight Houston-area Walmart stores to its drone network in July, two of them with Spring addresses. The Supercenter at 1025 Sawdust Road is about 5 miles (8 kilometers) north of Bridgestone, and Wing says its drones reach roughly 6 miles (10 kilometers) from a store.
The other Spring store is on Riley Fuzzel Road, and the July list also added Supercenters on FM 1960 West and Tomball Parkway, CultureMap Houston reported on July 8. Wing said then that the 13 stores put drone delivery within reach of more than one million Houston-area residents. The FAA signed Wing’s Houston decision on August 13, and it allows up to 75 nests across ten counties with 400 deliveries a day each.
Chron’s article illustrates the story with other aircraft. Its lead photo, credited to Amazon via the AP, shows a drone in College Station, which is not on Amazon’s current list. When DroneXL loaded the page on November 13, the video embedded under Gibson’s quote was titled “Finally Saw a Walmart Delivery Drone.”
Gibson may well be hearing Amazon drones, and nothing in the record says otherwise. The public record puts a Walmart store Wing flies from within Wing’s stated 6-mile range of the neighborhood and puts no announced Amazon hub there. A resident who wants to know can check an address at wing.com/walmart and at amazon.com/dronedelivery. In Richardson, the tracking apps the neighborhood group uses show Walmart drones as well as Amazon’s.
The two aircraft deliver differently. Amazon’s MK30 weighs 83 pounds (38 kilograms) at takeoff, and the one Amazon showed at XPONENTIAL Europe in Düsseldorf in April reached my shoulder. It descends to about 13 feet (4 meters) and releases a box of up to 5 pounds (2.3 kilograms), and no FAA filing or Amazon spec DroneXL has reviewed lists a parachute. Wing’s drone hovers at about 23 feet (7 meters) and lowers the order on a tether.
Amazon Says 30 Seconds of Sound. An FAA Filing Puts the Hover at 92.1 dBA
Amazon told Chron the sound heard on the ground is minimal and typically lasts about 30 seconds. The FAA’s noise appendix for Amazon’s Baton Rouge hub puts an MK30 in delivery hover at 92.1 dBA SEL, a sound exposure level, measured 25 feet (7.6 meters) away.
Amazon spokesperson Allie Payne told Chron the sound is “comparable to a passing car” and that Prime Air cuts road traffic and brings skilled jobs. The company said it met residents and city leaders in Richardson and adjusted its flights there. DroneXL set the FAA’s hover figure against Amazon’s claims in September, and the agency’s Chicago appendix, which DroneXL reported when the Markham hub opened, puts a cruising MK30 at 63.7 dBA SEL at 200 feet (61 meters). SEL packs a whole pass into one second, so it does not line up with a backyard meter reading. Wing gives 43 dBA for a drone in cruise and has told a Missouri council its delivery hover runs about 62 decibels.
Richardson is the nearest precedent for a count like Gibson’s. A resident there logged 52 Amazon overflights in one day in September, after Amazon had already raised its average outbound altitude to 225 feet (69 meters).
Spring has fewer levers than Richardson. It is unincorporated Harris County, Texas counties cannot zone, and a 2017 state law bars local governments from regulating drone operations, as DroneXL’s Houston drone delivery guide lays out. The one move by Harris County that DroneXL has found was to join 15 states in petitioning the Second Circuit on September 28 against the FAA’s nationwide drone delivery finding. Amazon takes complaints at 1-888-280-4331 and through its customer service chat under “Something Else” and then “Amazon Drone Delivery,” and DroneXL’s guide for residents covers what to log before calling.
DroneXL’s Take
Gibson’s complaint is real whoever owns the drones, and I think the first job is to find out who that is. A dozen flights a day is a small number against what the FAA has already signed for this part of Harris County. The FAA reviewed the Amazon hub on FM 1960 at up to 1,000 flights a day and its Wing decision covers 75 nests at 400 deliveries each, and I found no FAA document that adds Amazon’s and Wing’s flights together. If the drones over Bridgestone are Wing’s, calling Amazon gets her nowhere. If they are Amazon’s, then Amazon has opened a hub it has not put on its own list and, as far as I can find, said nothing publicly before the flights began. I’d still rather see these aircraft carry insulin than insoles, and an 83-pound MK30 with no parachute is a lot of machine for a five-pound box. Spring residents should write down the time, the direction and the color of each drone before they call anyone.
Sources: Chron, Amazon, FAA decision, Amazon Texas, CultureMap Houston
DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo. Read our editorial standards.
