Hillwood, Manna Team on Last-Mile Drone Service

A drone delivery company based in Ireland is teaming up with a Dallas-based real estate developer to launch a last-mile delivery pilot program in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

Hillwood is partnering with Dublin-based Manna to deploy its drones—which can fly at close to 40 miles per hour carrying packages weighing up to 7 lbs.—at the sprawling 27,000-acre AllianceTexas business park, home to more than 560 companies in a planned community that spans Denton and Tarrant counties in the Lone Star State.

AllianceTexas is a global logistics hub with its own airfield, Perot Field Fort Worth Alliance Airport—named for Hillwood founder Ross Perot—and a BNSF Railway intermodal shipping facility.

Manna has specialized in deliveries from food tech providers and online food platforms, as well as medical supplies, which can be ordered through its Manna Drone Delivery app. The Dublin-based startup has raised more than $40M in seed money, including an investment from Coca-Cola bottler HBC, the company said in a release.

The pilot program at AllianceTexas is subject to approval from the Federal Aviation Administration.

The FAA has been working since 2017 to establish federal guidelines for the use of drones in US airspace, initially through the Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Integrated Pilot Program (IPP), which set up six testing sites including a 50-mile drone corridor centered on Rome, NY and an area in North Dakota.

In 2020, the IPP program expanded into an effort known as UAS BEYOND, which focuses on what FAA calls “the remaining challenges of UAS integration,” including beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) operations.

Companies setting up pilot programs testing BVLOS package delivery by drone are required to go through an air carrier certification known as part 135. Part 135 certification is the only path for small drones to carry the property of another for compensation beyond visual line of sight, FAA says on its website.

FAA has adapted its air carrier certification process for drone operations by granting exemptions for rules that don’t apply to drones, such as the requirement to carry the flight manuals on board the aircraft.

The FAA issues air carrier certificates to US applicants based on the type of services they plan to provide and where they want to conduct their operations. Operators must obtain airspace authorizations and air carrier or operating certificates before they can begin operations.

Certificates are available for four types of part 135 operations:

• A part 135 Single-Pilot operator is a certificate holder that is limited to using only one pilot for all part 135 operations
• A Single Pilot in Command certificate is a limited part 135 certificate. It includes one pilot in command certificate holder and three second pilots in command. There are also limitations on the size of the aircraft and the scope of the operations.
• A Basic operator certificate is limited in the size and scope of their operations: A maximum of five pilots, including second in command, and a maximum of five aircraft can be used in their operation.
• A Standard operator holds a certificate with no limits on the size or scope of operations. However, the operator must be granted authorization for each type of operation they want to conduct.

The FAA issued the first part 135 Single pilot air carrier certificate for drone operations to Wing Aviation, a subsidiary of Google parent Alphabet, April 2019. The FAA later issued Wing a standard part 135 air carrier certificate to operate a drone aircraft in October 2019.

Wing Aviation started as a part of the Integration Pilot Program (IPP), delivering food and over-the-counter pharmaceuticals directly to homes in Christiansburg, VA. Wing continued on with BEYOND when IPP ended in October 2020, according to the FAA website.

UPS Flight Forward, Inc., another IPP participant that continued on with BEYOND, was the first company to receive a standard part 135 air carrier certificate to operate a drone aircraft. On September 27, 2019, UPS Flight Forward conducted its first package delivery by drone with its part 135 certification when it flew medical supplies at WakeMed hospital campus in Raleigh, NC.

Amazon was the first company to operate a drone larger than 55 lbs. under a standard part 135 air carrier certificate. Amazon began commercial operations in August 2020.

On June 17, 2022, California-based Zipline became the fourth drone operator to receive a part 135 certificate—the company is authorized to operate as an air carrier and conduct common carriage operations. This is the first part 135 certificate issued to an operator under the BEYOND program and the first fixed-wing part 135 UAS operator to be certified.

In January 2023, Flytrex’s longtime partner Causey Aviation Unmanned was granted standard part 135 Air Carrier Certification, to operate and complete long-range, on-demand commercial drone deliveries in the US.