Amazon is expanding its presence in the skies over San Joaquin County.

The national’s largest online retailer that runs up to a dozen daily flights for its Amazon Prime network out of Stockton Metro Airport has selected the northeastern San Joaquin County unincorporated community of Lockeford as the first location in the United States to rollout home deliveries via drone.

Lockeford — 25½ aerial miles from Manteca — is known locally to festival goers as the home of Lockeford Sausages that has a storefront on Highway 12.

The community of 3,772 is fairly well spread out. It has a mixture of traditional subdivisions, old-school street layout patterns, and well as stretches of semi-rural housing

As such it may be an ideal starting place for Amazon to launch its drone delivery service given the mix and the fact it is not in a heavily urbanized area.

It will allow Amazon to iron out the bugs before expanding its drone delivery on a larger scale and into urban areas.

Amazon did not indicate a start date or provide extensive details in making its announcement.

Drones Amazon has been testing have a 15-mile range that are capable of carrying light payloads.

They are designed to operate out of a delivery station.

Given the range and the fact the nearest Amazon delivery center is in Manteca on Louise Avenue, the retailer is likely to establish a delivery station of some sorts — mobile or otherwise — in the Lockeford area.

Amazon has developed a sense and detection system for their drones. It allows drones to steer clear of midair collisions as well as striking  objects on the ground.

“If obstacles are identified, our drone will automatically change course to safely avoid them,” a press release from Amazon noted. “As our drone descends to deliver the package into a customer’s backyard, the drone ensures there’s a small area around the delivery location that’s clear of any people, animals, or other obstacles.”

The decision to start drone deliveries locally underscores the impact Amazon has on San Joaquin County and neighboring Stanislaus County.

There are 44 Amazon fulfillment locations in California.

That includes eight in the Northern San Joaquin Valley — three in Tracy, three in Stockton, and one each in Manteca and Patterson.

Two more Amazon fulfillment centers are moving forward  in the region — a 1.08 million square-foot facility on Fulkerth Road east of Highway 99 in Turlock where hiring is now underway and a multi-story facility on Eleventh Street in Tracy.

When completed just over 20 percent of Amazon’s fulfilment centers in California will be in the Northern San Joaquin Valley — second behind San Bernardino and Riverside counties that are also known as the Inland Empire.

The fulfillment center tally doesn’t include other Amazon facilities such as the distribution center for Prime customers in Manteca on Louise Avenue that serves the Modesto-Stockton-Tracy consumer triangle.  Amazon is reportedly pursuing a larger distribution center using van in Manteca on Airport Way. It is being designed with parking space for 750 vans.

Stockton is one of 75 airports Amazon using nationwide to operate its Prime two-day delivery system.

The airports Amazon Air cargo jets fly into put them within 100 miles of the United States’ 330 million consumers.

There are now 75 airplanes in Amazon’s fleet.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com