Drones over gatwick..

[Nexus]

A report I saw earlier said they didn't want to shoot it down because of risk of stray bullets.
I expect they also want to trace the individuals, as if they can follow them, it should technically lead to the operator(s) unless they ditch it.

 

[adolf hamster]

Yup, they have armed Police at the airports, unauthorised drone on site, trained Sniper takes it out, simples!

i think there's somewhat of an overestimation of the skills of even a very good marksman here, not to mention the very obvious issues of collateral damage that could be caused even in the event of a hit+pass through let alone a miss.

potentially a fine birdshot load might do the job, but depending on how high the drone is flying that might be difficult too.

 

[Malt_Vinegar]

Yup, they have armed Police at the airports, unauthorised drone on site, trained Sniper takes it out, simples!

Yeah! Firing bullets in the air in a highly populated area.. Makes great sense!

Shooting from directly above would make sense, but then you need to place an aircraft in close proximity to the drone which is exactly what they are trying to avoid doing

The simple answer is to fight fire with fire. Those drone racing chaps are pretty tasty at high speed accurate flying in enclosed spaces. Hiring them to crash heavy drones into other drones would surely be fairly easy. I bet they would love to be pro drone operators, and get the chance to work on rotation in a large hanger practicing drone work all day!

 

[Maccapacca]

Just shotgun it out the sky, there's a couple of clay shoots around Gatwick so they can't be that worried about stray projectiles.

BTW living quite close it's unnervingly quiet now, not that where I live is noisy it's just a background hum you never really acknowledge

 

[Semple]

Is there any way to actually stop a drone though, or even track it to who owns it (excluding the obvious of it having gps with a home setting, or somebodies name written on it).

I have seen a few prototype defensive measures that are in development. They work by creating a field where the drone controller loses signal with the drone, I think it's much harder/impossible to actually take over control of the drones signal as these are usually encrypted.

The problem with a lot of these prototypes is that don't know what impact it has on the surrounding area, especially at an airport. But these things could potentially interfere with phone signals, WiFi etc. So will probably be some time until we see a working defence system put in places like airports.

 

[Washout]

Let's just be thankful they haven't figured out how to mount laser pointers to these things yet!

 

[Terminal_Boy]

Just shotgun it out the sky, there's a couple of clay shoots around Gatwick so they can't be that worried about stray projectiles.

BTW living quite close it's unnervingly quiet now, not that where I live is noisy it's just a background hum you never really acknowledge

Lead shot doesn’t travel far, so the safe distance from any firing point is 300 yards. I wouldn’t expect it to travel that far if fired straight up.

Effective shotgun range against a regular civilian drone is going to be 35-40 yards, so an anti-drone team would be easy to evade.

 

[SC0TTRS]

Namby-pamby approach to this, wouldn't happen on Putin's watch!

 

[Semple]

The simple answer is to fight fire with fire. Those drone racing chaps are pretty tasty at high speed accurate flying in enclosed spaces. Hiring them to crash heavy drones into other drones would surely be fairly easy. I bet they would love to be pro drone operators, and get the chance to work on rotation in a large hanger practicing drone work all day!

Yeah this could be a good idea, build a few cheaply made/quick drones that could be used to damage the ones trespassing.

 

[wolfie138]

looks like stuff moving now, FR24 makes Gatwick look like a carpark lol.

 

[Dunks]

Yeah! Firing bullets in the air in a highly populated area.. Makes great sense!

Shooting from directly above would make sense, but then you need to place an aircraft in close proximity to the drone which is exactly what they are trying to avoid doing

The simple answer is to fight fire with fire. Those drone racing chaps are pretty tasty at high speed accurate flying in enclosed spaces. Hiring them to crash heavy drones into other drones would surely be fairly easy. I bet they would love to be pro drone operators, and get the chance to work on rotation in a large hanger practicing drone work all day!

Especially if you combine this with some kind of light weight net, can't imagine it'd take much to stop a drone.

 

[200sols]

Namby-pamby approach to this, wouldn't happen on Putin's watch!

Move to Russia then?

 

[d_brennen]

This might be test to see how easy it is to take out a busy airport. Even if it isn't, it's seemingly a doddle...

 

[foster grant]

This might be test to see how easy it is to take out a busy airport. Even if it isn't, it's seemingly a doddle...

Yep

 

[Blackjack Davy]

they arent really any more dangerous than a bird, how many times do airports shut down if there are a flock of birds around?

Well they employ people to scare them off with loud noise or hawks, don't think that would work with a drone. Besides you can shoot down most birds if they're a nuisance doubt thats possible with drones though perhaps it ought to be, spot a drone over an airport get someone with a shotgun to blast thing out of the sky.

 

[Quartz]

Yup, they have armed Police at the airports, unauthorised drone on site, trained Sniper takes it out, simples!

That's a bit difficult at night. And do you want a radar-guided Phalanx spraying bullets all over the place?

 

[chrismscotland]

BTW living quite close it's unnervingly quiet now, not that where I live is noisy it's just a background hum you never really acknowledge

I used to spend most of the week in a hotel next to Heathrow which admittedly had triple glazing so you didn't notice it too much, but I remember being there during one of the Ash Cloud occurrences when UK airspace was closed - was really, really strange!

 

[MookJong]

The Met has said there is nothing to suggest this is terror related. Do you think they are saying this simply as the drones made no attempt to crash into a plane or....?

 

[wolfie138]

Well they employ people to scare them off with loud noise or hawks, don't think that would work with a drone.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-europe-35750816/eagles-trained-to-take-down-drones

 

[200sols]

The Met has said there is nothing to suggest this is terror related. Do you think they are saying this simply as the drones made no attempt to crash into a plane or....?

Surely they are just guessing and putting the news out to 'reassure' people, they have no idea who has done / is doing this as they have not caught anyone.