Amazon hints that waterskiing may one day take to the skies

Amazon this week gained patent approval for a specialised tow handle that can attach to one of its drones, allowing whoever is hanging onto the end of the tow rope to control the drone’s flight.

According to the patent, originally filed in 2016 but shown publicly for the first time this week, a waterskier will be able to press a button to call for a drone when they’re ready to head out on the water.

According to the patent’s description, the drone will also stop and return to the waterskier if the handle is dropped.

The system is very similar to “droneboarding”, where a snowboarder is pulled along by a  drone.

Amazon’s patent says the waterskier’s handle will include the ability to control the speed and direction of the drone as it pulls.

It says the ski rope handle will include a GPS system that is used to summon the drone, and a wireless connection to control it.

The handle itself will contain at least a pair of controls that can be used while the skier is holding on, with separate thumb buttons that can be accessed without the skier needing to take their hand off the handle, and a dead man’s switch that will stop the drone if the user lets go.

Amazon also says more critical buttons will be located at the ends of the handle so that they can’t be pressed accidentally.

And while Amazon’s drones are likely to be optimised for delivering parcels, special programming will allow the drones to enter a special on-water mode that instructs them to avoid obstacles.

Amazon claims the ski drone can also be geolocked to stay within a certain area to avoid venturing into dangerous waters.

No timeline is given for when Amazon expects its flying ski tow to officially launch, but traditional tow-sport boat-makers shouldn't need to lose any sleep.

Details of alternative battery technologies that don’t currently exist in the drone world suggest the Amazon tow pig is likely to be some considerable time away from tomorrow.