its all b@llox...
whenever you see the demos of these things..
the weather is always fine..
They wont work with 600' cloud base and 40 kt winds.. hence useless.
The other thing that the protagonists of UAVs always forget is that when a crew is searching for vehicles/persons (in daylight).. nearly all of it is done with human eye.. NOT by the camera.. The human eye has a MUCH wider field of view than a camera, and the human brain is much quicker and better at interpreting whats in view when seen first hand rather than via a remote screen on the ground..
The UAV manufacturers always ignore how much of our search work is done by actually LOOKING OUT THE WINDOW..!!!
I would relish a challenge whereby a large open area is searched for lets say a laid out casualty, by a normal police crew of 3, versus a UAV.. and lets see how effective the UAV is..
Of course the weather would have to be acceptible for the UAV..!!