The Paketkopter carried medicine and other small parcels through wind and snow without the slightest problem, even as Amazon and Google and UPS hone their autonomous tech and try not to hit anything. The little drone that could flew from one "Skyport" to another at 45 mph, turning into a half-hour slog by truck into an eight-minute hop. "We purposely chose the test area to pose a new and bigger challenge," says DHL spokesperson Dunja Kuhlmann.

The German shipping company started experimenting with drones in 2013, sending small parcels across the Rhine on a quadcopter. Another quadcopter delivered medical supplies to a North Sea Island in 2014. This time around, DHL built a carbon fiber tilt-rotor (think V-22 Osprey) drone that takes off like a helicopter and flies like a plane. It's got a six-foot wingspan, a payload of 4.5 pounds and a Vmax of 80 mph.