TheCaptainJZ, on 22 May 2014 - 11:02 AM, said:
It does have a max visual range so throwing it up high in the sky might not work so well. I forget what the range is.
Smurfy's site gives it's range as 240M horizontal and unless I'm reading it wrong, 150M vertical. That probably means it's launched 150M up in the air, as that seems to be about it's normal altitude and I've never experienced any problems with a friendly UAV failing to spot targets on lower ground. It does need to be tested more thoroughly but as far as I can tell a UAV's altitude is irrelevant.
I've also countered that on at least one occasion as I was on teamspeak with an enemy premade at the time, trying for a 5 man sync drop. It seemed to work fine for them until I shot down the UAV, which I could only do because I was a sizeable distance away from the main group and I already knew it was there.
A good way to test it would be to try it and try to gauge how far from the UAV you can still get targets, jumping from high ground and then launching would be preferable.