It's a bird, it's a plane ... no, it's a flying burrito.
Chipotle and Google parent Alphabet's Project Wing are launching a pilot program that will deliver burritos via drones to starving Virginia Tech students in Blacksburg, VA. Bloomberg's Alan Levin was first to uncover the story.
"It's the first time that we're actually out there delivering stuff to people who want that stuff," Dave Vos, who heads Project Wing, told Bloomberg.
The experimental service — the most comprehensive test yet of what companies like Amazon and Walmart hope will become normal delivery protocol — has the full approval of the Federal Aviation Administration.
For students, it's surely a worthy endeavor, but safety must not be compromised in the process. Thus the the burrito-bearing drones, described as "self-guided hybrids that can fly like a plane or hover like a helicopter," will have actual human pilots standing by to take over in the event of an emergency situation, and to comply with FAA rules. The drones will hover in the air and deliver their cargo using a winch, according to Bloomberg.
It's actually part of a very serious effort on the part of Virginia Tech to become a leader in new transportation technology, school President Timothy Sands told Bloomberg.
"It sounds simple, but it's not," Sands said. "There are a lot of things to work out from a safety point of view and a policy point of view," he told Bloomberg.