Drones (and helicopters) do have their market as well. A lot of engineering firms I saw would go with one of these two, depending on the situation.

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Scoundreller 4 hours ago | parent [-]

How many years away are we from a cheap drone that will takeoff, land, solar recharge, repeat until it returns to you a few weeks later with a few tb of SD cards of high res imagery?

	▲	notahacker 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		A lot of the barriers are regulatory in the Western world. In rainforests you might not have to worry about that, but there aren't many shade free spots to land