North Dakota Golf Course is Delivering Food to Golfers Via Drone
A golf course in North Dakota is making national headlines with a new food delivery service for their golfers out on the course.
CNN Tech reports that King's Walk Golf Course in Grand Forks will be delivering refreshments to golfers on the course by way of drones as of September 15th. Golfers can order refreshments on an app and then receive their order as it's lowered to them by a rope attached to the drone about 10 minutes later.
This type of thing is usually done by a beverage cart that patrols the course. However, on busy days, the drones could make things more cost effective for the course and more efficient for golfers when the beverage cart is tending to other holes throughout the course.
The golf course is partnering with FlyTrex, a drone logistics startup operating the service, with plans of doing a six-week trial run with the single drone making deliveries to locations on the course. Should the trial run be a success, and after receiving FAA permission for flying over people, additional delivery points will be made around the golf course.
The drone weighs approximately 33 pounds and can fly at about 30 mph. To avoid being hit by flying golf balls, the drone will fly around 200 to 300 feet off the ground and descend to about 45 feet above the ground when making deliveries.
Grand Forks is no stranger to drones as the University of North Dakota was the first university with an undergraduate drone degree and the local Air Force base focuses on drone air missions.