I'd only skimmed the text on the LEDB drone and the text finally clicked. What were they thinking? Imagine the mayhem of bringing a leaf blower to a crime scene. Now bring a super-leaf blower, with enough power to lift a ~30lb drone. that's enough to shift handguns around. Then you've got the issue of the stubby drone arm that can't grab things attached to walls without risking a rotor disk collision.

I'd think one of the small blimp drones would make much more sense as the thrust is minimal for maneuvering.

None of the aircraft in SR make sense (most of them should be loud as hell, too), but oh well. I always assumed this drone was for patrol and apprehension, not CSI.

As far as a rotor disc collision, perhaps the LEDB has internal rotors like the Sikorsky Cypher?




-k

That. or something like the Parrot AR.Drone
http://ardrone.parrot.com/parrot-ar-drone/en

This displacement issue - that rotorcraft have to displace a huge volume of air if they're to stay aloft - is a major one as far as Shadowrun rotorcraft and vectored-thrust vehicles go. To some degree, the amount of displaced air can be reduced if we assume Shadowrun's impressive materials technology, which lets us reduce the weight of the drone immensely, but you still wouldn't want to share a hallway with an Ares Guardian. Ultimately you can choose to assume a breakthrough that allows such things reasonably, or you can include the effects of propwash, and thus not use such drones in close quarters.