Has anybody tried that? The only "scout drone" I found so far was a 1x1 tank.
What I have in mind is a group of air scouts that makes a pass over the area at the start of each turn. Either they are launched from Skyranger before the mission start, or operatives launch them as needed and they continue flying after that. Of course, they can be shot down by enemies. A cheap (<$100) plastic radio-controlled airplane carrying a camera (and possibly a single grenade) is a realistic technology for 1990s. Even more than the tanks. No armor, but they are small targets and should be harder to hit.
Helicopters, quadrocopters and such are possible too, but I think they require more sophisticated electronics, which would make them much more expensive for 1990s.
Airplanes can't stop in the air, and I don't know how to handle that better. Maybe the player should set the starting and ending points at the edges of mission map for each drone at the start of each turn, and the drone would travel the straight line between them and disappear; if the end point is not the edge, the plane falls down and cannot launch itself (without a launcher in Skyranger); if the drone runs into unseen Floater/Ethereal/civilian standing on the roof, it also falls down. Or maybe the planes should be uncontrollable by player and just travel between random points an the edges each turn.
Yet another variant, that I like less, is a portable "camera plane launcher", similar to a rocket launcher, possibly lighter. When an area needs to be scouted quickly, an operative shoots camera planes that fly to the edge of the map. Either they are single-use, or reusable and recovered after mission.
