Those floating balloon things we saw previously, the ones which were shot down, I had a thought they could be used as floating drone platforms. Like the carrier in Starcraft. The whole thing can silently float for days, the drones can awake and deploy, surveil, return, then float away silently. It could then scuttle itself in the ocean where a waiting ship can salvage it.
It'd be a lot more subtle to just have a spy on the ground operating a drone from nearby, looking like just another careless hobbyist flying where they shouldn't be.
Small drones don't have much range, and balloons could have ended up hundreds of miles off target.
