The Miami-Dade County Police Department has finalised a deal to buy a T-Hawk from Honeywell and officially applied for permission from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) last month to begin flying it around the county. The 20-pound UAS has cameras mounted on the sides, can fly for 40 minutes at a time, reach 10,500 feet, and cruise at up to 46 mph.
Honeywell's T Hawk
Police in Houston have tested UAVs, and a Sheriff’s office in Colorado has a drone to look for stranded hikers, but no one has yet deployed a UAS in a large metropolitan area. The Army and the Air Force have more than 7,000 UAS overseas, and 44 other countries use the devices, but this is new territory for civilian law enforcement agencies. Already a number of parties have voiced concerns about the privacy issues raised by having overhead surveillance of this nature.
The FAA has never approved a UAS for regular flight in an urban area, and it’s not clear how long it will take the department to get full clearance. When that happens, MDPD will likely deploy the aircraft with its Special Response Teams. Packing powerful cameras, the UAS could track suspects, sweep past houses and patrol above the streets.