There is still a mass of delusion associated with drones and what they can and cannot do and sadly some of the public services are promoting the tosh.
At best a small quad Drone is a free flying CCTV to which you can add an umbilical to extend its time of flight but not its range. It can only rarely be considered an instant reaction tool..... chasing baddies across fields [as being promoted recently by some operators] is the stuff of dreams or press set-peices. Generally they are never going to be in the right place at the right time with the machine ready to fly unless its a pre-programmed sting or a stake-out.
The real negative is that for the baddies of all descriptions they can carry nasty or prohibited stuff across the heads of security and crowds. But you can throw such stuff over such barriers anyway so its not really new.
Nothing up and out there now [the future may change of course] will replace a helicopter in other than the persistent surveillance or photographic role and yet there is a danger that all of us are talking up the technology prematurely.
I do not recall Rotorheads ever previously having threads on SLR cameras, tripods, CCTV, let alone balls and hand-grenades and yet that is what is apparently going on here. A recent NPCC report was talking about having 'big' drones circling cities watching over everyone...... There are more pressing needs, that is years off and probably Star Wars anyway.
One to watch but its still an orange box upon which to stand and look over the wall...
