Only by the military and Homeland Defense and only in airspace they control.
There has been some interet in using them along the southern border, but that is a Federal use, and the Federal gov can control the airspace (NOTAMS, Restricted areas...). Cities can not.
Thats the “peeling the corner of the envelope” syndrome...;-)
The local Texas Air National Guard wing (the 147th) thats been here since dirt, lost its bid to stay at Ellington field to cover the gulf coast and the petrochem industry right next door...
We no will have them deployed to San Antonio or some other fall back that doesn’t make sense at all...BUT!
We will replace the F-16 manned aircraft with....wait for it...
Predator drones that can be used (for what, they have not said as a replacement for the F-16’s) but it has been said by Govenor “Good Hair” Rick Perry that they can be used to “monitor” the border...
Now...Monitoring is fine...We’ve been doing that for years...To varying degrees of failure and success...You still going to have to have boots on the ground to handle the failures of the “vitual fence” the freakshow is talking about these days...
But to have to fly (or deploy) them out of Houston is fairly logistically stupid...
But then again I have not been asked (or been paid any kickbacks to rah rah this idea) to evaluate this particular aspect of the project...Or anyone I know.../sarc
Maybe they can be protected better up here away from the drug cartels and mexican military from having to be stowed for any length of time down closer to the border...(this maybe why)
But anyway, these Intuit drones are strictly urban eyes in the sky...They cannot be weaponized very well, nor would I in my wildest hallucinations think that could really work well...They are small and telling the FAA to sign-off on these systems has met some resistance, but that is only as good as the FAA can hold its ground...I seriously doubt the FAA is going to say no much longer...The movement, meeting and seminars to get them to at least “try” (the first step in how the government gets its own to change their organizations major policies) to find a way to work with these neato mosquito aerial drone systems...
You know...I’m looking to find a way to modify an “AirHog” R/C helicopter to maybe fly above 100 ft or so...They are pretty cheap...;-) I’m such a stinker!!! It would probably only be a bug on a windshield type encounter, but it may smudge the lenses...hehehe