Falcon UAV is a Colorado company that makes a fixed-wing UAV called a Falcon that uses GPS and cameras to autonomously generate among other things highly accurate maps of the ground. The UAV is hand-launched, with an endurance of about an hour, and generally operates between 300 and 1,500 feet above the ground. It has public safety flight approvals from the Federal Aviation Administration FAA to fly in some parts of Colorado. Basically, the point here is that we’re not talking about some random dude with a quadrotor flying around taking pictures: the Falcons are designed for and governmentally approved for mapping missions in public airspace.

via UAV Provides Colorado Flooding Assistance Until FEMA Freaks Out – IEEE Spectrum.