It almost seems like I'm living in the start of an Orwellian novel.. "See how good and beneficial the drones can be?"... I love the technology part, I love the possible benefit for transportation etc, I hate the surveillance connotation (Which seems to be the primary intent here albeit for "good purpose")

> "It was not the drone that actually spotted the missing man," David Lesh told the BBC.

Hate the way the word "drone" is being conflated to mean giant bombing machines and small home helicopters. I imagine this is deliberate. Article feels like propaganda.

Isn't anyone else surprised that an 82 year old man with Alzheimer's can wander around in the bush for three days and only be mildly dehydrated?

He'd likely be dead if he'd gone missing in Australia.

A friend is working on drones that look for smartphone signals to locate someone missing: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-07/16/drone-disaste...

I wish people would credit the "drone operator" for any drone that isn't acting on its own.

Don't police helicopters usually have thermal / infrared cameras? There's very little chance this drone had an infrared camera, correct?

I'm thinking that the drone pilot just got lucky. Or he saw the man previously and then found out he was missing, then knew almost exactly where to look (complete speculation but more reasonable than the needle in a haystack scenario)

What is the max range on a reasonably priced drone these days (transmitter range or battery range)?

Why is the FAA so against drones (or whatever you want to call them) is any case? Sure none of us want police drones circling our backyards, but there are so many positive uses that the FAA seems intent on stifling like search and rescue, agriculture and surveying.

How many times does a drone (operator) not locate the person? All statistics are relative to something unless there is a political spin.

Edit: add operator in brackets.

A more appropriate and less sensationalist title would be "Man on holiday uses his remote controlled quad-copter to search for missing man", or "Man with remote controlled helicopter got lucky, found missing man after just 20 minutes because he searched in the right place".

The 'drone' is not the news here, he could have been flying around in a helicopter, if he looked in the same place he would have found him.

I wish people would accept drone world wide. Unfortunately in many places they are forbidden :( This is sad, because if tomorrow someone would invent a flying car, something like the taxi from "The Fifth Element", then most probably that will be forbidden as well, on the same principles.