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Amazon operates Prime Air deliveries from a small number of US sites. Where it flies, it flies the same corridors repeatedly, which is why one receiver under a route sees the same handful of airframes again and again rather than a steady stream of new ones.

What it looks like

Airframe

Winged hybrid — six rotors either side of a fuselage that has wing surfaces. It lifts off vertically, then flies on the wing.

The tell

Six rotors, not four, and a body between them rather than a bare frame. A consumer quadcopter has four arms and nothing in the middle; a MK30 has a fuselage with wings and three rotors along each side, and it points the way it is going.

Sound

A steady multi-rotor hum rather than the rise-and-fall of a fixed-wing aircraft, and noticeably quieter than an MK27.

How its broadcast names it

Aircraft sold in the US since September 2023 must broadcast Remote ID in the clear. Part of that broadcast is a serial number in the ANSI/CTA-2063-A format, which begins with a four-character manufacturer code. Every Amazon Prime Air airframe starts with 1786:

1786501046  →  1786 identifies the maker, the rest is theirs to assign.

That is a property of the standard rather than a guess, so anyone receiving the same broadcast can check it. A Raspberry Pi and two USB adapters are enough to read it yourself.

What one receiver actually recorded

One receiver, one location in north Texas, under one delivery corridor. These are that receiver's own contacts — not a national figure, and not a count of how much Amazon Prime Air flies. A second receiver somewhere else would see a different set of airframes entirely. Heights are above ground, taken only from broadcasts that said so; the ones reporting altitude above sea level are excluded rather than averaged in, because mixing the two describes nothing.

Watch your own airspace

The receiver is a Raspberry Pi, a Bluetooth adapter and a Wi-Fi adapter. It listens only, transmits nothing, and what it hears stays private to your account unless you choose to share it.

How to build one →  ·  Parts list