They need a Phantom in Northern Syria

[Wedeliver]

I am watching CNN and they are showing pictures of a battle going on in northern Syria. The view of tracers reminds me just a little of Vietnam. But the view there was completely different. Everything in Nam could be a person, in this desert I would just blow up all the rocks with my 50 cal and be done with it.
But that is not the reason for this off topic post, but I could really see the value of a flying camera in this battle. You can see fighters coming over a ridge and then they are shot at and retreat. The big, big problem with this whole thing is you/we cannot see over the ridge. Quite often there are 10's of thousands of troops massed there and at the last instant they rush and you are over run. But all it would take is one of our flying cameras to get some elevation and see what is on the other side of the hill.

I can see this as being a really valuable use of what we might think of as a toy, but as a tool it has a lot of abilities.

 

[knuckles]

I was watching some news about our local police that had an armed suspect surrounded in a home. They had to back off the police helicopter because he took shots at it. The best view they could get safely was from a rooftop from a nearby house.
A small drone like a phantom would be a perfect thing to use to get a view around the house without risk of life. At least for the phantom the issue would then be battery life and it's not very quiet.

Sadly I read a few weeks ago that ISIS has at least one phantom. The US military has high tech drones and I'm sure they are using them to gather intelligence about the enemy and maybe some missle strikes.

 

[planedr]

The military has much better drones than a bright white, noisy, plastic toy.
The Raven has a 10 km range 60-90 minute flight time GPS ground station waypoints and a 500' ceiling. Top speed is 60 mph. They fly them at our airfield and you can't hear them from about 300' and up.
It's 3' long with a 4.5' wingspan. It's almost impossible to see at 500'