[VLM]

Retrograde advantage. I listen to my scanner and have some aviation interests and it seems a depressing truism that nobody ever needs helicopter ambulance service right next to a wanna be helipad in perfect weather. The human pilots are quite skilled and seem to fly almost by feel in the worst conditions. Lots of on site judgment calls about winds and power lines and trees and obstacles.

Something I think likely / inevitable is assistant drones flying in formation with a rescue chopper very closely coupled to the chopper autopilot. Its easy for a surprise wind gust to kill a chopper, but if you have a perimeter drone force hovering in perfect formation 100 meters away, you have 100 meters warning for the autopilot to react and prepare. Not to mention the usefulness of a drone for exotic rescue (ferry that rope down the gully for us to climb down and reach the victim) or accident scene lighting under bad conditions.