Drones over gatwick..

Django x2 said:
Cool. But yes. And just to help you out here, as you seem to be struggling, if the press know, then a handful of people knowing is unlikely. If only a handful of people know, then the press can't know and any reference to UKSF22 can't be trusted as cited source on these forums.

So which is it?
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I mean I know people have levelled similar comments at me but if you are employed in a position to know then someone really should be having a word with your SC (or equivalent depending on service) and if you aren't but do known then you probably shouldn't be posting anything too specific.

Werewolf said:
I'm guessing that, also police thermal cameras tend to look at relatively large areas with low detail (so it would need to be a large hot source) or small area areas with higher detail in which case you're even more likely to miss it.

The drone's only real heat output will be it's motors and they're far smaller than what the thermal cameras police copters are equipped with are normally meant to be looking at (humans, motorbikes, cars etc).
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Wonder if it is possible to locate/track via a mixture of sound positioning - the noise they make is fairly distinct and some kind of optics.
 
Greebo said:
What i dont understand with how many times this drone would have to ply back somewhere to get its batteries changed is why a police helicopter with thermal cameras couldnt have followed it back to its base?
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I think they declared no fly. Thus didnt seen a police helicopter, the downdraft of which alone would have probably brough this shambolic mess to an early ending.
 
Well I'm scratching "anti-drone device manufacturers" from my list of conspiracy theories. If it were, their ends have been amply achieved and continuing just risks exposure.
So remaining theories:
  • Environmentalists. Very possible, though normally they seek publicity.
  • People doing it for a laugh. Still possible, but the drone is reportedly something out of the ordinary and the duration of this incident is longer than you'd normally expect for basic hooliganism.
  • Ransom / extortion attempt. There could be demands for money in order to stop doing this. The authorities and BBC would certainly not publicise this. It would also explain the ongoing nature of the incident and (reportedly) exceptional nature of the drone, as well as what must be co-ordinated efforts to keep the incident going.
  • Enemy State action. Unlikely, imo. There's little to be gained politically - especially when nobody knows it's you. However, it could be dry run / testing response. Seems the least likely option, imo.
  • "Terrorists". This isn't terrorism (at the moment), but it could be "terrorist" types. ISIL sympathisers or similar. They could just be acting out of hate or more likely it could be a dry run / testing response.
  • Lone nutter with a beef against Gatwick or an airline or just society in general. Or simply getting off on having 'meaning' in their life.
Did I miss any? I think #3 is the most likely, followed by #5 then #6.
 
h4rm0ny said:
People doing it for a laugh. Still possible, but the drone is reportedly something out of the ordinary and the duration of this incident is longer than you'd normally expect for basic hooliganism.
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The kind of information I'm seeing so far would suggest the drone is probably liquid fuelled so they are getting a few hours between topping it up - you are talking considerably upwards of £10K for those kind of drones so unlikely hooligans doing it for a laugh.

(In which case it would be more readily tracked with thermals than your normal quadcopter running of li-ion batteries).

EDIT: Potentially I would class this as an act of terrorism if the intention is massive disruption of services and potentially making people feel unsafe.
 
h4rm0ny said:
Thanks. So even less likely than I already thought, in your view.
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Well the information is a bit sketchy but it doesn't really match up with your average mainstream drone.

Someone who has a beef with Gatwick or an airline and has finally flipped would be quite a high candidate as well IMO as per your last point - this is the kind of thing that make someone spend a lot of money and persistence causing trouble.
 
Rroff said:
I mean I know people have levelled similar comments at me but if you are employed in a position to know then someone really should be having a word with your SC (or equivalent depending on service) and if you aren't but do known then you probably shouldn't be posting anything too specific.
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With the amount of people on this forum we must have at least one member who is in a job that would know the location of the SAS.
Nobody knows who Django is so it isn't a problem really and he hasn't actually said anything about them.
 
SexyGreyFox said:
With the amount of people on this forum we must have at least one member who is in a job that would know the location of the SAS.
Nobody knows who Django is so it isn't a problem really and he hasn't actually said anything about them.
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If he does, which i doubt, you are sailing very close to the wind and advice for people with any meaningful level of clearance is not to publicly promote or discuss the nature of your job nor access, his point was seemingly coming from a news outlet standpoint.
 
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Concrete said:
At this point, surely a manpad is the best option.

Yes its overkill, but it will work (they are proven against drones), and if launched when the drone is within Gatwick's perimeter its safe.
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Not in a million years, if by sheer bad bloody luck the damn thing malfunctions & loses it's lock you've got a sizeable tube of explosive hurtling over the perimeter fence doing a few 1000 mph, that is gonna leave a helluva hole where ever it comes down, the safest way to forceably bring it down would be to ram it out of the air with an rc plane or another drone, you can't go firing missiles at the damn thing.
 
Werewolf said:
It's a shame that Gatwick is over 3km long and most of those cameras are going to be at a distance that is well over 100m away...

There are large areas of the airport property where the only people who will have access will be those with specific clearances, which means most of the cameras are going to be from people in the "public" areas, or around the perimeter. Which effectively means the drone could easily be several hundred meters away from any group of cameras, especially if the person controlling it is trying to make sure it's a distance away from people.
This isn't taking pictures of something that wants to caught on camera, or even doesn't care about being caught on camera, this is taking pictures of something whose operator seems to be wanting to keep out of range of people who might try and stop it, and that happens to mean that it's also going to be out of easy photography range for most of the people who might want to get a snap.
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That's a pretty good argument you make. I know a fair bit about this sort of stuff myself, and even with my 10 years of RC flight experience (planes, helicopters, FPV racing and AP multi-rotors), I don't think I could do as good a job as has been done here. Not even close. There must have been serious planning involved, not only with regards to flight paths and altitudes, but also construction and configuration of the craft itself and it's control system, and the charging and battery setup.
 
SexyGreyFox said:
With the amount of people on this forum we must have at least one member who is in a job that would know the location of the SAS.
Nobody knows who Django is so it isn't a problem really and he hasn't actually said anything about them.
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Well my sources tell me that Jason Bourne, 007 and the A-Team and Laura Croft have all been deployed.
 
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