 "Amazon tests drones in British countryside")
After hours of searching, I pulled on to a dirt track here in the rolling hills of Cambridgeshire and spotted a small dot whirring across the blue sky, gently swaying in the breeze as it steadily flew about 200 feet above the ground.
Jackpot: It was an Amazon drone.
Barely visible to the naked eye, the unmarked aircraft, about the size of a large model plane, floated across a field about 1,000 yards in the distance, the lights on its four-pronged sensors flashing brightly against the afternoon sun.
Amazon, the giant e-commerce company, began secretly testing unmanned aircraft this summer at an undisclosed location in Britain (its largest outdoor test site, according to an Amazon executive). I set out to find the top secret site, wanting to see how we all may one day receive online deliveries.
In retrospect, signs of Amazon's secret tests were hidden in plain sight.
There was the warning to pilots that unmanned aircraft would be flying in the area, about an hour north of London, until early October; the uncharacteristically fast cell phone reception in such a remote area - a must when processing drone data; and the growing list of jobs and openings at Amazon's research and development site in Cambridge related to Prime Air, the company's ambitious plan to use drones for everyday deliveries.
Amazon is not alone, however, as other companies conduct drone trials around the world.
In New Zealand, Domino's Pizza is testing drones to ferry fast food across the country. Google is offering burrito orders delivered by drone in Virginia. JD.com, the Chinese e-commerce giant, already has a fleet of drones flying autonomously for a maximum of 15 miles round-trip, to reach rural communities at a fifth of the cost of traditional trucks (though a person still takes the package on the last leg of its journey to the recipient).
In Britain, Amazon is working with local authorities to test several aspects of drone technology like piloting the machines beyond the line of sight of operators, a practice still outlawed in the United States.
Regulators here first authorised the commercial use of drones in 2010 - years before the Federal Aviation Authority eased its restrictions on remotely piloted aircraft in June. Amazon settled on Britain after the United States initially denied it approval for such tests.
At the site in the Cambridge countryside, and a similar facility in Canada, Amazon is likely to be working on the drone's sensors and other improvements needed for its daily use.
A company spokeswoman declined to comment on the English test site.
With competitors aplenty, it is not surprising that Amazon wants to hide efforts from prying eyes. In Fulbourn, the nearest village to the test site, where thatch-roofed houses and a centuries-old church stand guard over the quiet main street, few people even knew that the American technology giant had moved in down the road.
© 2016 New York Times News Service
