Any good uses for a drone around our bug out AO or bug in AO for SHTF ?

One thought was for a quick orbit around your AO before entering/leaving to insure no bad guys or for just general surveillance.

What does this group think ?

Absolutely...

The only problem is returning the drone to the launch site.

Go up... look and not see bad guys BUT bad guys seen a drone and observe the return flight to launch site!

go to https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=shtf+drone  a search I did in youtube for "shtf drone"

A whole bunch of how-to, what if, try this videos.  

I particularly like The Hubsan H301S, I just recently got one, still learning the details of it.  Quiet, miserly of battery power and can get itself back to home if you get totally disoriented.

Tethered drone systems with indefinite flight times are coming out now.....

The ones I have seen are huge money though.

Local security, reconnaissance/intel gathering, message delivering. Plenty of uses for eyes in the sky.

This is mitigated by practicing good tradecraft. Don’t launch it from obvious locations, don’t fly it directly back to the launch position.

Biggest issues are flight time, weather/wind limits their use to relatively calm and clear days, and the range that FPV Works.

Thanks Dablues.   That was helpful.

Here is what I found right at the top of the list.

It had some good points.

IN!
I want one with NV or FLIR that I can send up high at night to look for unfriendlies.
I worry about the hidden sniper as much as anything else so sending up a drone to scout the ridges would be nice also. I would hate to be taken out going out to the coop.
The possibilities are endless and when the price falls on tethered it will be awesome.
I saw some that were a combo with a helium balloon that stayed on position for days at a time but $$$$

I would buy a FLIR Drone in a new york minute.

I just got a quote on a DJI Inspire with a FLIR camera for my department.  Drone with a nice 7x zoom camera and 4 extra batteries and case was around $3k.  FLIR camera for the drone was $10k.

Absolutely. My drone’s video signal is good for MILES and can fly high enough that it is difficult to hear.

This, I recently looked into it as well.

The setup is closer to $16k for the average joe.

If it is your property, consider stringing miles of cable and upmteen cameras mounted here and there.  I don't trust wireless but I am sure with solar panel to charge the battery it could work in many cases.

A drone is portable and just messing around on youtube I find amazing pictures and vids of stuff.

So yeah, being able to see what is making noise or using a drone to check the perimeter has potential.

Not something to rely on 100% though.  Then again I have learned I can't always rely on myself 100% unless the goal is checking the beer cans for purity.

You must have never owned a drone because your comments are wrong.  My Mavic Pro has a 27 minute flight time on one battery.  I have spare batteries and plan on buying more to add to it's capabilities.  My Mavic is very stable with high winds as well...I'm not talking 40MPH, but I've had it in 20MPH + and it's damn stable considering the wind.

Thermal drone sounds great, but if you have people i the woods in the summer with tree/leaf cover, you might not see anything even with thermal.  I'd buy a thermal scope before I'd buy a drone with thermal as I feel having a scope is much more useful for me.

As far as the tethered drone goes, why not just use a clear weather balloon with a camera. Aside from having something tiny, there are probably balloons designed to stay up for long periods of time and a lot less drama than 4 chinese brushless motors.

Anyone could see the balloon and follow the tether to the location, unless it was repeater based.....

Mavic Pro owner here....

The biggest potential problem I can see are the constant software updates.  In a SHTF scenario you may need the drone in the air RFN, and not only does the software update take 5-30min, it requires internet and if not current can cause major problems flying.  You could probably get away with non-GPS mode but then you lack most of the drone’s capability, and you may still not have FPV.

The second issue is not having zoom on the camera.  The drone camera’s are designed to take cinematic video, not observe people/objects at distance.

Also keep in mind the flight times are good but not great.  I imagine 25min would go by pretty damn fast if you really need this thing in the air.

Also this is all assuming GPS and/or GLONASS is still up and running.

In short, I’d rather have the capability than not, and it could absolutely come in handy, but there are limitations.

Very good points, even my non GPS toy model drone (sky viper) checks for updates quite often.  Without GPS and using FPV I hesitate to fly it out of sight.  Doesn't take much wind to start blowing it around and even though I can see what the camera sees, without GPS it can become pretty challenging to navigate very fast.  You want to be well above the tree line to operate on video feed only that's for sure.  Also need to leave yourself enough battery to find your way back.  You would want to be used to looking at your AO and have practiced your flight paths before its actually needed, so as not to be reliant on GPS.

I myself have only just started playing with the very most entry level video drones possible and while they are fun, and could be a good tool I am not sure how much money I would invest for the purpose of SHTF.

ETA/
I watching some of the other UAV/ airplane style drones I would think a quad copter would be better for around the house type surveillance while the plane style is going to cover more distance and fly a bit longer.

I recently acquired a Sky Viper V2450GPS. It has a 720p camera connected to an embedded Linux board that has Wi-Fi on it, and has a micro-sized Pixhawk autopilot on board. It comes with a 2.4Ghz radio transmitter, or you can use a better one of your own. It runs the Arducopter code which has incredible features, most all of which are available on the little 2450. I got it on sale at Target for $99.95. I usually build my own but for $100, I can't even buy the Pixhawk by itself, much less build a whole platform with a camera. And, it runs on a single-cell lithium battery for about 12 minutes. My Iris+ is about a 15 minute bird hauling a GoPro and I've sent it 1500m away and had complete control via the transmitter and the laptop telemetry unit. The only reason I wouldn't send it a mile away is because my eyes aren't good enough to spot the thing that far away. My big hexacopter, sure, but not something that's little more than a foot across. On my big hex I also have a long-range video unit on that feeds me the video from the GoPro in real-time.

Were I in need of a drone for SHTF, I wouldn't hesitate to use any of mine, including the little v2450 that you can't hear beyond 10 feet away. I'm working on a better hand-launched fixed-wing at the moment. Once I finish that, I can pretty much surveil whatever size area I need to.

recce.  Why go where you don't know it's safe?  It flies and sees what's on the other side of the hill.

a small hand launched fixed wing model with fpv is exactly what I want. I would like to later add a 640 resolution thermal camera and have gps software which would allow for me to circle a specific area and lock the camera on a stationary target.

Anything like that out there yet for a hobby model?

The circle around a point is easy enough to do with Arduplane. As for the thermal, I'm trying to see if I can use an old Android phone or Odroid/Pi with one of these: Spec sheet for Seek CompactPro

Good for you.  I can assure you that our weather conditions here are very different than yours in PA.

And yes I own a few now, to include race drones that I have built. 30min flight time is attainable in less "blustery" conditions. I get around 15-20min flight time when I fly outdoors here. If I fly in PA around my parents place it's closer to what you get. 6000ft elevation doesn't help either I'm sure.