Adrian Weckler: Honest debate about drones must go a lot further than whinging about noise
Ireland is unusually out in front, in European terms, in the drone delivery space. This is solely because of Bobby Healy's drone delivery firm, Manna, which has just signed its third major fast-food giant deal, this time with Deliveroo.
Last week, Healy said he expects to see up to 10,000 daily drone delivery flights by the end of the year across 10 different locations in Ireland, including Blanchardstown, but maybe also Cork, Tallaght and Glasnevin.
Regulators, generally, seem content. Businesses do too. But will there be pushback on the issue of irritation, particularly when it comes to noise?
A scathing feature article in the Irish Times last week quoted a number of residents and councillors in the Blanchardstown area who said they took issue with the drones, mostly because of their noise. These complaints were dismissed as 'hysterical' by Manna, who said that the company has received just 77 complaints from over 170,000 delivery flights.
So just how noisy are delivery drones? In my experience, they're clearly audible, though far less noisy than almost any delivery motorbike. Seated indoors with windows closed, you'd only hear one when it's delivering something close to your house at its lowest hover point. With windows open, it's more like hearing a buzzy bluebottle.
Manna put forward a study it said was conducted by Trinity College Dublin (though commissioned by Manna) which measured the company's self-built drones at two key points of its flight: when passing over a home at 65 metres' height and when at its lowest point (14 metres in height) when delivering the package.
Over the home, the TCD measurement report said the drone had the same audible reach as 'a normal conversation [within] one metre', and that it was 'audible but brief [lasting]10 seconds'.
When flying at its lowest, at the point of package delivery, the drone sounded like a 'washing machine' or 'distant vacuum cleaner'. This, the TCD study said, was 'the loudest part of the mission'.
It's not hard to see how this would divide opinion. Anyone who doesn't like the idea of delivery drones in the first place will say that the additional noise is unacceptable.
Those in favour of the development will say it's a pretty modest hum.
If Healy's projections come to pass, and we start seeing thousands, rather than hundreds, of drone delivery flights per day, this debate is likely to escalate.
If it does, my hope is that it broadens sufficiently to encapsulate the core issue: acceptable noise limits in residential settings.
There is a real, fully-defensible interest we all have in 21st century cities, towns and villages enjoying peaceful, non-piercing, non-disruptive levels of noise around our homes. It's a civilisation issue; we simply don't need to accept screaming machines the way we used to.
Even apartments beside motorways, which are already discounted compared to those 100 metres farther away, now feel a right to thicker windows and quieter vehicle engines.
I have always wondered, for example, why we put up with the existence of shrill mopeds and loud motorbikes. I know it's because they were a cost-efficient answer at the time. But these days?
It's harder to justify, especially around residential areas. Everyone accepts some noise – even jolting, intrusive noise – if it serves a purpose we believe serves our neighbourhood.
No-one says an ambulance's siren should be quieter. No-one seriously objects to agricultural machinery operating at the edge of town homes. And there's generally no by-law against petrol lawnmowers, as cacophonous as they are. We even still accept noisier diesel cars, even though we now know that their initial justification – that they were better for the environment than petrol engines – was false.
So where do drones fit into this discussion? Is whatever noise they produce justifiable, relative to what they do for society?
This is where views start to differ wildly. Listen to any call-in radio debate or online discussion on the issue and it soon becomes clear that many complaining of their noise simply don't like the idea of delivery drones at all, independent of whether they can be heard.
The main objections, it seems, are a combination of utility, safety and privacy.
'Do we really need coffee delivered by a drone?' is the most common retort I hear or see.
'Medicine, maybe, but doughnuts? What sort of a society have we become?'
This argument seems a little weak. It's a preachy tone laced with undertones of snobbery – what kind of slobs are you that you'd do this? And so on. This complaint also completely ignores the much worse noise from delivery motorbikes – shouldn't there be a ban on such vehicles, if noise really is the priority?
Safety also crops up as a potential worry to drone delivery. What if they crash?
A much more worthy objection, in my view, would be legitimate concerns over privacy and surveillance. Last week, this column revealed that a loophole in European law may allow gardaí to use face-tracking AI in real time, contrary to the EU AI Act (which applies to almost every other country) and contrary to what the Government currently says its intentions are.
It may not be so hard to believe that a shift in attitudes could see delivery drones double as policing or security devices. After all, aren't Ring doorbells now effectively used as an extension of local policing?
Safety also crops up as a potential worry to drone delivery. What if they crash? With thousands of flights, wouldn't the chance of that go up?
The noise debate seems to be the one that looks set to occupy most heat in any pushback against drone deliveries. But if it's an honest debate, it should surely be wider than just for flying coffee couriers.
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I have always wondered, for example, why we put up with the existence of shrill mopeds and loud motorbikes. I know it's because they were a cost-efficient answer at the time. But these days? It's harder to justify, especially around residential areas. Everyone accepts some noise – even jolting, intrusive noise – if it serves a purpose we believe serves our neighbourhood. No-one says an ambulance's siren should be quieter. No-one seriously objects to agricultural machinery operating at the edge of town homes. And there's generally no by-law against petrol lawnmowers, as cacophonous as they are. We even still accept noisier diesel cars, even though we now know that their initial justification – that they were better for the environment than petrol engines – was false. So where do drones fit into this discussion? Is whatever noise they produce justifiable, relative to what they do for society? This is where views start to differ wildly. Listen to any call-in radio debate or online discussion on the issue and it soon becomes clear that many complaining of their noise simply don't like the idea of delivery drones at all, independent of whether they can be heard. The main objections, it seems, are a combination of utility, safety and privacy. 'Do we really need coffee delivered by a drone?' is the most common retort I hear or see. 'Medicine, maybe, but doughnuts? What sort of a society have we become?' This argument seems a little weak. It's a preachy tone laced with undertones of snobbery – what kind of slobs are you that you'd do this? And so on. This complaint also completely ignores the much worse noise from delivery motorbikes – shouldn't there be a ban on such vehicles, if noise really is the priority? Safety also crops up as a potential worry to drone delivery. What if they crash? A much more worthy objection, in my view, would be legitimate concerns over privacy and surveillance. Last week, this column revealed that a loophole in European law may allow gardaí to use face-tracking AI in real time, contrary to the EU AI Act (which applies to almost every other country) and contrary to what the Government currently says its intentions are. It may not be so hard to believe that a shift in attitudes could see delivery drones double as policing or security devices. After all, aren't Ring doorbells now effectively used as an extension of local policing? Safety also crops up as a potential worry to drone delivery. What if they crash? With thousands of flights, wouldn't the chance of that go up? The noise debate seems to be the one that looks set to occupy most heat in any pushback against drone deliveries. But if it's an honest debate, it should surely be wider than just for flying coffee couriers.
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