# @zipline on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/CQdRBtlAmq6
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/70712924-zipline-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/eb50f015ef.jpg
- **Posted:** 2021-06-23T09:14:32.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Zipline (@zipline) — https://gondola.cc/zipline

## Caption

#HumansOfZipline 🤩👏🎉 Jon Schwindt is a Program Lead at Zipline, currently working on launching our first “Powered-by-Zipline” model with Toyota Tsusho, where we license our drones and train the Toyota Tsusho team on how to operate the system. Jon is a longtime member of the Zipline team, who was recruited via Craigslist while looking for crab fishing jobs (serious throwback!). Jon shared with us his favorite moment from our first operations in Muhanga, Rwanda in 2016 —> where this photo is actually from!
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
“When I arrived in Rwanda we had just started flying, and it was very early days. We only had Abdoul Salaam as a Flight Operator. Abdoul was working with Brett, Rico, and a few other people. The recovery system Brett & I built in California - a wooden setup with the plane landing on mats - is what we launched with in Rwanda. It was safe and tested, but it was supposed to be a temporary stopgap. We were just beginning to fly in Rwanda. To be the operator, you had the iPad in one hand, and in the other one was a physical RC remote controller. We were doing ‘return to nest’ flights, no deliveries yet. We had never flown beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS). Once given the go-ahead from the regulator, I finally got to see one of our drones leave line of sight for the first time during a test flight - it veered east, and went behind a mountain. I held my breath and thought to myself - Hopefully it does what we think it does. 
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
We had strapped a GoPro on the Zip for this test flight (**please note: Zipline does NOT have cameras on its drones**) because we wanted to collect as much data as possible. In the end, the drone recovered nominally. When I pulled the footage I saw the drone crest the mountain, get drenched by rain, and blow the rain off just as it was designed...that was really the coolest moment, seeing Rwanda from a drone’s eye view.”

## Stats

- **Views:** 0
- **Likes:** 318
- **Shares:** 0
- **Comments:** 10

## Tags

humansofzipline

---
Copyright (c) Gondola