What would protect london in the event of a...

Probably unlikely, if a plane starts going for a building in london then hitting it with a missile is simply going to make it crash anyway so you'd still be unlikely to prevent casualties.

I guess they'd be able to stop it hitting an important target like buckingham/westminster.

A bigger plane would be worth shooting down but that'll come with more warning in terms of passenger planes deviating from their prescribed flightpath. Although again i doubt they'd want to shoot down a plane full of people until the last possible second.
 
They don't need anything in London itself, they can have defence systems 100s of miles away. But a plane can't be hijacked in the way it was during 911, the pilots lock themselves in behind an armoured door now.
 
All Aircraft must report to flight control and keep to their minimum height and vector. If no communication was received or the aircraft repeatedly ignored Tower warnings it would be intercepted either by Jet or, we hope, AA weaponry...well that's the theory anyway.
 
Nasher said:
They don't need anything in London itself, they can have defence systems 100s of miles away. But a plane can't be hijacked in the way it was during 911, the pilots lock themselves in behind an armoured door now.
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Detection systems can be 100s of miles away but aside from the Aster platform on the Type 45s we don't really have any anti-air systems with that range - its something that was highlighted in 2015 in that Rapier, etc. are largely obsolete since the early 2000s against many modern threats partly due to their relatively short range and we are lacking in a more advanced anti-air and anti-ballistic missile system - sadly it seems that its deemed acceptable for the gap in capabilities until 2020 when they are planned to be replaced and if push comes to shove we will be relying on the Type 45s which we decided to decrease the number of in production below what is really needed though it seems we struggle to maintain and staff those we do have :s

http://www.defencesynergia.co.uk/uk-air-defence-a-forgotten-capability-gap/

amigafan2003 said:
Nothing.

The cost outweighs the risk of such an event occurring.
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That isn't how a nation's defence is supposed to work :s (obviously within reason). The whole point of a military defence program is covering for eventualities that you hope never happen and are largely low risk of occurrence.
 
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cyber69 said:
I’d be more worried about one of these large multi rotor drones carrying high explosives
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d_brennen said:
It'd not carry that much tbh, much easier to pack a car/van with a bomb and drive up to a target
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Packing one with a small explosive and dropping it at random points in London with high numbers of people could cause terror pretty easy, since the attack would be unseen and totally random.

These things are small, hard to see, almost impossible to see and hear if they flying high enough.

On top of that, you wouldn't even know it was a drone, one minute, everyone is walking around and the second, there is a loud bang, maybe one or two people hurt or dead and everyone be looking around, thinking where? and what?

You wouldn't even need to use a explosive, just a glass bottle full of nails or broken grass dropped, you could even fill the bottom with acid for more effect. Repeat this a few times per day, it surely cause terror in people.
 
I don't think there's much stopping drone attacks, it's a wonder there hasn't been a high profile attack yet as the technology exists to do a lot of damage. E.g. dropping bombs into a football stadium. A missile could be attached to a drone and could shoot down planes taking off etc.
 
Chojin said:
A missile could be attached to a drone and could shoot down planes taking off etc.
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The maximum payload/lift weight of your average drone is about 1/10th what a portable anti-aircraft missile platform weighs - you'd need a pretty big specialised drone.
 
Rroff said:
The maximum payload/lift weight of your average drone is about 1/10th what a portable anti-aircraft missile platform weighs - you'd need a pretty big specialised drone.
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A lightweight armed MANPAD system such as the 9K333 Verba would be around 18KG. A shop bought DJI drone obviously wouldn't handle that but a quick search brings up the Vulcan UAV Airlift which can handle up to 30KG.
 
Chojin said:
Well hobbyists have already done it, so why not terrorists?
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Nicely done, a basic black powder rocket with no guidance or warhead launched vaguely upwards after surviving a 20' drone flight.

Quite a ways away from being able to fire a rocket into a jet intake of a plane as it takes off (because if you hit it anywhere else you're gonna need a hefty warhead to do enough to knock it out)

No, if your gonna use a drone to take down a plane just use the drone, if your gonna use a rocket use a rocket from a shoulder launcher and expect to miss without military grade guidance on it.
 
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