Once the order was placed and food prepared, the drone departed the truck about 2 kilometres away and I tracked its progress on an app.

Travelling at a top speed of 120 kilometres per hour and a maximum height of 120 metres, it popped up over a nearby hill within about four minutes, and a loud buzzing sound ensued.

Positioning itself over a designated landing area in the middle of a paddock, the aircraft flew about five metres off the ground as it lowered a cardboard box package with a winch, detached the payload, and returned back to the store. It did all this while flying autonomously, with a pilot looking over its flight path for safety purposes.

After a small trek in designer platform boots — why Ben? Why? — over various animal crap and crickets (ugh), I grabbed the package, took it back to a nearby table and opened the cardboard package by pulling down on a deliberately protruding cardboard tab while holding its sturdy, specially made plastic handle. Inside? Hot burrito and guacamole.

What more could I want in life right now, I thought to myself.

Once described as a "pie in the sky" idea by one member of the drone industry, and "ridiculous" by an Australian academic studying drones, autonomous drone delivery now seems like it could actually become a reality in Australia.

Overseas, pizza company Domino's and retailer Amazon have been trialling food delivery via drone, with Domino's using Aussie start-up Flirtey in New Zealand to deliver pizza and Amazon Prime Air testing its technology in the United Kingdom to deliver parcels of goods ordered online.

In Royalla, residents have been trailing Project Wing for about six months now to order food from Guzman y Gomez and items from pharmacy chain Chemist Warehouse, using an app that figures out a flight path with software developed by the project team, described by co-lead James Burgess as "kind of like Google Maps for the skies". Residents of the town otherwise face a 40-minute round trip to pick up supplies. Over 600 deliveries have taken place so far.

But the drones don't come without critics, who California-based Burgess said often came around to the idea once they had been fully briefed regarding their privacy concerns.

One horse owner, for instance, worried that the drones would scare his animals. After agreeing to a test, the horses were startled to begin with but then became used to the drones.

Unlike other drone tech start-ups which have tried to get off the ground (quite literally) with food delivery in Australia, such as Flirtey, which had to go overseas, Project Wing has convinced Australia's aviation regulator to grant it the approvals required to test autonomous drones.

"They have approvals for augmented beyond line of sight [and] operations within 15 metres of people. " CASA spokesman Peter Gibson told Fairfax Media. "This is a trial and we and the operator will learn lots about what may be possible in the future."

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Gibson said a person was required to be in charge of each individual drone at all times.

"The next step is one person managing multiple drones," he said, much like a security guard watching over multiple CCTV cameras.

"We'll all learn from the trial what may be possible," Gibson said.

"It is very exciting and CASA is proud to be playing role in providing the safety approvals for this project. Australia is again leading the way in drone operations and research, as we have for many years. CASA's commitment is to facilitate the development of drone technology while maintaining appropriate public safety. We will continue to work closely with the project as it progresses."

Now, Project Wing is moving to the suburbs, with homes in the ACT's Tuggeranong its next target.

While my trip to collect the burrito took four hours, expect far faster and more convenient deliveries once Project Wing hits suburbia.

One of the biggest issues to tackle, however, will be delivering to city apartments, which don't have many safe places to hover drones nearby for pickup. To fix this, I imagine we will start to see drop off zones located outside the front of apartment complexes.

Another issue is the weather. And then there's the noise. These things aren't quiet!

While Sydney Airport has a curfew of 11 pm, will we also need a curfew on food delivery drones so we can sleep? Probably, and I think it's something many would welcome.

With Doug Dingwall of The Canberra Times.