Company's mission to revolutionize package delivery with drones starts in rural Yolo County

The future of package delivery is taking flight in rural Yolo County as a Bay Area-based company Zipline is testing their delivery drones on local farmland. 

Esparto has been home to family-owned Yolo Land and Cattle for fifty years. The ranch for the past 10 years has been home to Zipline's high-volume test site.

It is where all of the trial and error takes place to help grow the company's goal of getting small packages of food, groceries and medicine to customers across the country quickly, safely, and by air. 

"It's a much more environmentally friendly option for delivering goods. Our CEO likes to say that you don't need a 4,000-pound, gas-guzzling vehicle to chauffeur a burrito to you. We can do that a lot more efficiently with our aircraft," said Michael Rigby, Zipline's test site lead in Esparto. 

Rigby invited CBS News Sacramento out for a tour of the test site, where we spotted dozens of drones flying overhead, practicing picking up packages and delivering them to a target the size of a dinner plate. 

After, the drones return to the charging station to wait for their next assigned delivery. 

"We're actually delivering straight line, avoiding traffic and getting to your destination very quickly," said Rigby, showing CBS Sacramento the docking station. "It can travel at a speed of about 75 miles per hour at that point."

Esparto neighbors would hardly know the test site is there. It is nestled miles deep into the ranch, solitary and surrounded by picturesque views of the Capay Valley. 

"It's also a perfect landscape for testing. We kind of have our own little valley here that we can operate in. We can do that in a way that's very secure and private," said Rigby.      

Rigby took CBS News Sacramento inside the maintenance center, where crew members work on every drone and its data receptors to ensure safety first as they fine-tune the technology. 

"We do exhaustive flight testing to make sure that everything works perfectly. We do at least about 10,000 flights on every new software change, every new hardware change. Because our system has gotten so reliable, we have to force things to fail," said Rigby. "We are putting these aircraft out over homes, people, property, pets. So this thing has to be safe when it's out in the real world."

They are working primarily to prevent things like crash landings or mid-air collisions with other aircraft. 

"If there's fire response in the area, we're grounding our aircraft and getting on the ground. But even if those aircraft were to surprise us and come into our airspace before we were aware of it, our aircraft will detect them and get away from them automatically," said Rigby. 

The drones flying on the Esparto ranch are not just prototypes, and expansion is on the horizon. 

"We're looking to bring this to the rest of the country in the near future," said Rigby. 

Zipline is already making commercial deliveries in cities in Texas, Arkansas, and soon in Arizona. Some of the main clients utilizing their drone deliveries include Walmart, Chipotle, Crumbl, Wendy's and Panera. 

"Our average time for delivery is about 18 minutes. We've even seen deliveries as fast as five minutes," said Rigby. 

The drone can drop a customer's package right at their front doorstep or even in their backyard if they choose.

But what about the buzz? Zipline says their goal is not to be a nuisance neighbor. For that reason, Rigby says they are thoughtful about where they place their drone docking stations. 

"We have standoff distances from residential communities to make sure that we are a good distance away, so that we're not being a nuisance in that regard. And then again, when the aircraft is making its delivery, it is staying at a high altitude, so you're not getting a strong sound signal from it, and it's not gonna be that irritant that so many other things could be. So we are very cognizant of those things in our planning," said Rigby. 

As for how it works, there are two ways a business can get its products to customers. 

First, via a kiosk. The business's employee will step outside, place the package in the kiosk that they have installed, and the drone will arrive, drop its pod from the air, pick up the package inside, and then go deliver it to the customer. 

The second option requires no infrastructure at all on behalf of the business. 

The drone will dispatch to the business and drop its pod to the ground. The business will then be alerted to come out and load the package into the pod. The drone will then pick up its loaded pod from the air and take the package to its final destination. 

Isaac Lopez, with Zipline ground operations, demonstrated how each pickup works. 

"It's pretty fun how everything runs. Everything is going well for Zipline. It's growing," said Lopez. 

The Esparto local says he is grateful for high-tech work so close to home. 

"I really love doing all this, all the drone stuff. I've learned a lot," said Lopez. 

The site's steward is Casey Stone, owner of Yolo Land and Cattle. Zipline has been testing delivery drones on his ranch since 2016. 

"They were catching drones with fishing poles and fishing line back then. So they've come a long way since then," said Stone. "We support their mission wholeheartedly."

Zipline started not in the commercial space, but by flying medical missions to drop much-needed supplies in Africa. 

"Drones are the future of everything. Even with agriculture," said Stone. "I don't think we would have envisioned what is there today ten years ago, but it's it's pretty cool to see it evolving."

As for Stone's herd of cattle and horses, in a decade, he says both they and the wildlife like bald eagles that live on his land have not been bothered by the drones. 

"It has not impeded our ability to do our ranching operations one iota. If anything, it's enhanced the ranch. It's allowed us to diversify our income stream a little bit," said Stone. 

There is human oversight on every flight, even for a fully autonomous, electric system. That happens in the command center, where Zipline staff dispatch the drones and the system takes it from there. 

"It'll show the flight routes, air traffic control style," said Rigby, showing us the command center. 

As for when commercial deliveries could expand to Northern California, Rigby says plans are in the works, but a date is not set. 

Major cities they are operating in now include Dallas and Houston. They are working right now on a rollout in Phoenix.