We are certain officials at the Vidalia Police Department are having fun learning to operate the two drones the department recently purchased.

Who wouldn’t?

The question is, just how practical is the purchase?

Drones are the craze these days. Everyone from real estate agents to law enforcement officers to the folks at Amazon seem unable to live without them.

Vidalia Police officials say their drones will come in handy when officers are pursuing a dangerous suspect, or when officers need to get a glimpse inside a potentially dangerous areas, such as toxic substance spills.

The drones are essentially flying cameras and cost about $2,000 each. They are also delicate pieces of equipment operated by sophisticated software and have quite the learning curve to fully master. The battery life of the drones is approximately 25 minutes.

Drones can be helpful, certainly, in some law enforcement applications. And we’re all for anything that works to keep our police officers out of harm’s way.

But just how much use will the Vidalia Police Department get out of its investment?  We encourage police officials to publicly disclose how often the drones are in use and in what ways they’re helpful to police officers, so the public can understand how their money is being spent.

Officials at the Vidalia department say they are the first law enforcement agency in the Miss-Lou to acquire a drone. Perhaps Vidalia will share use of theirs with other departments if a need arises.

In the meantime, we cannot see the drones as being much more than a novelty at the moment, and we wonder if the money used to buy them could have been used to upgrade other, more useful equipment for officers, other Vidalia Police staffers or simply save Vidalia taxpayers money.