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Amateur Drone Lands On British Air Carrier, Wired Reviews Anti-Drone Technology (bbc.com)
Long-time Slashdot reader mi quotes the BBC:
The Ministry of Defence is reviewing security after a tiny drone landed on the deck of Britain's biggest warship. The Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier was docked at Invergordon in the Highlands when an amateur photographer flew the drone close to the giant ship. When the aircraft sensed a high wind risk, it landed itself on the £3bn warship. The pilot told BBC Scotland: "I could have carried two kilos of Semtex and left it on the deck... I would say my mistake should open their eyes to a glaring gap in security."
Meanwhile, tastic007 shares Wired's footage of anti-drone products being tested (like net guns, air-to-air combat counter-drones, and drone net shotgun shells) -- part of the research presented at this year's DEFCON.
Meanwhile, tastic007 shares Wired's footage of anti-drone products being tested (like net guns, air-to-air combat counter-drones, and drone net shotgun shells) -- part of the research presented at this year's DEFCON.
a tiny drone (Phantom class) that can lift 2 kilos and fly an usable distance, and I'll buy it just to figure out what kind of new motor and battery tech they are using. Flying and landing where you shouldn't is bad I get it, but don't use obvious hyperbole to make it worse then it really is.
This is why the Chinese will dominate. $400 drone vs. $2,000,000,000 carrier and the done wins - Game over.
This reminds me of the cleverness of the Soviet space program when they used pencils while the Americans spent $21,000,000 developing a space pen.
Even today, you can go retrofit a standard rocket firecracker from a local store with explosives and go shoot them at stuff. There isn't some all seeing security system that will stop you. 2kg of explosives from one drone isn't going to cause as much damage as people think to a warship. And I am sure if it was going to a sensitive location or a bunch were coming in, there would be soldiers shooting them out of the sky.
If you're interested in the anti-drone products, Google "Game of Drones National Geographic." It's a pretty well made episode about a military competition to stop commercial drones. Its a cable-provider login, but worth it.
>The pilot told BBC Scotland: "I could have carried two kilos of Semtex and left it on the deck... I would say my mistake should open their eyes to a glaring gap in security."
I suggest the authorities teach the pilot a lesson and arrest him on terrorism charges and illegal trespass
I've flown my scratch-build 400 class multirotor (they are not "drones", idiots!) in several hurricanes with 40+ MPH winds gusting to 70+ MPH and I had no major issues.
I think there is a Mr Steele video of him flying a tiny little acro quad on a mountain in winds that looked gusting to unbelievable speeds.
I guess the conclusion is DJI must suck.
This topic of drones and their use for violent eds and how it's changing things just came up in a recent episode of Sam Harri's waking up podcast where he interviewed Gavin De Becker a security expert who runs a company specializing in personal protection. The main point of the interview was not drones but violence overall, however De Becker starts discussing drones towards the end of the podcast after the 2 hour 10 minute mark
His main point is this: when it comes to inflicting tissue damage, the most significant advancements in the history of weaponry have been those that have increased the distance between the attacker and the target. Such advancements reduce the risk to the assailant, thus increasing the amount of individuals willing to use these technologies to commit violence. This is why accelerated metal projectiles were such an effective discovery, and after those prior to drones the technology that's had the most impact has been remote detonated bombs, because they increase the distance between the target and the assailant even more. Drones go even further than this because they're essentially smart/guided bomb platforms or biological agent delivery systems (airborne pathogens dispersed over crowds etc)
Becker states that in his opinion commercial drones are the most significant advancement in tissue damage technology in a thousand years (ie. since bullets) because they're very cheap, very easy to use, and very hard to defend against. And the maneuverability is extremely high: drones with collective pitch can do stuff like this and it doesn't take that long for an individual to learn to pilot them.. When you add to that the fact that swarm technology already exists allowing a single operator to control up to 50 small drones that will avoid crashing into each other but can be guided to hit a single target, and that in the future the drones may well be entirely autonomous and not require even a signal to the controller, I find it hard to disagree with De Becker's estimation that this will be much, much more relevant advancement in weapon technology than people currently think.
As he points out, 'every weapon that has ever been developed has been used", we know that commercial drones are used as improvised weapons already, but this is in the very early stages. It's only a matter of time before some prominent politician/celebrity/business leader somewhere is assassinated by a drone or some terror group successfully carries out an attack in the west, and once the meme is out there, they're going to start ramping up. Compare to the use of vehicles as tools of terror; the technology itself has existed for over a century, but now that the weaponizing of personal vehicles has become a trend it's begun to spread and has started to be used even by groups pother than islamic terrorists, but a vehicle attack is very limited in scope and accuracy and can only be used to deliver random damage.
Drones are far more precise, and, when used correctly, far more deadly while at the same time being massively cheaper than vehicles. The fact that you can currently fly a drone in most western cities without much care of being caught even if you fly it in a no-fly area is a problem.
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" -Alfred North Whitehead
They probably ignored it and assumed it was a bird. A larger drone would get detected more easily. Ships already have systems which can easily knock down a drone: Phalanx CIWS, Goalkeeper CIWS, 30mm DS30M Mark 2 Automated Small Calibre Gun.
http://southpark.cc.com/clips/e8sol1/unarmed-civilian-drone
A 10 billion dollar ship can be sunk with a missile or a torpedo that costs 1000 times less. What else is new?
Every concept conceived by humans can be used for both good and evil. Banning, regulating, or otherwise trying to control technology is a pointless exercise because ultimately, some human gets to decide what is good and what is evil.
Russian Drone With Thermite Grenade Blows Up a Billion Dollars of Ukrainian Ammo
Actually the drone can be very useful - The RPG is only going to get anything on the flight deck. And when at port, the flight deck is gong to be very clean. The real target is the guts of the ship.
The drone can be flown inside the repair/rearm/refuel portions of the interior of the ship. Your entry point is the elevators are to move aircraft. It is a big hole on the side of the ship. The intent is to fly a drone through that hole and blow up the first target of opportunity (aircraft, fuel truck, arming truck, weapons stores, personnel, anything flammable). If you do badly, you only destroy one aircraft and the fire suppression system stops the fire there. If you hit the jack pot you blow up something important: air craft elevator, fuel stores, weapon stores, partially dismantled flammable equipment. Trained Personnel and possibly limit the capability or temporarily disable the air craft carrier.
For the cost of $1,000 (drone, flight goggles, weapons, control mods and crash/deadman switch) you have diabled a 3 billion dollar aircraft carrier and caused millions of dollars of damage. From a cost/benefit ratio that is a success. If it fails the attacker is out $1,000 and can walk away without a problem. If the attacker succeeds, the attacker is still out $1,000, but the other side out millions of dollars.
Architectural plans are like computer source code with a couple of differences: You only compile once.
2 lbs of explosive would do nothing to a flight deck. A drone dropping a grenade onto a playground while kids are playing is a far more likely outcome. ISS is already doing that in Iraq and Syria. As they were being defeated in Mosul they sent drones into cleared areas and dropped grenades or mortar bombs onto the civilians. It seems someone always finds a way to use every technological advance to harm someone else.
Assuming that the drone owner was right and their drone could manage to heft 2 kg (4.4 lbs) of stuff around what exactly would that do to an aircraft carrier? It'd be a little like firing a paint ball gun at a car, annoying but not meaningful in any way. I agree that there should be contingencies for dealing with hostile drones but it's not the any bigger deal than dealing with nuts trying to break onto the carrier with a gun or trying to smuggle things in the cargo, both of which would likely be more dangerous than a drone with explosives.
It would be an anti-personnel mine AT MOST. To the carrier it'd do some scarring, to anyone outside 10ft, bugger all apart from slight wounds.
An RPG would do more damage than a drone with a little bomb.
Even better, sink it with a bunch of torpedos. The ship is docked and pretty much empty. No one is going to be there looking at the sonar while it's docked in a shipyard.
I'm mostly surprised that the owner of the drone is free and able to speak to the press, instead of being shuffled off to a blacksite somewhere, held in locked windowless room, and subjected to 'enhanced interrogation' to get him to confess his ties to some extremist group or other, while they trash his home sift through his life, and destroy his reputation with everyone he knows by pulling them all in for questioning.
Needed to send the message "I was just fooling around and made a mistake. Sorry, I'll never do it again."
Instead sent the message "I could have delivered 2 pounds of Semtex!"
Thereby lets the military know that said pilot knows what Semtex is, attacks with explosives are on his mind, and he can't be trusted (at best an overeager tech wannabe, at worst a practicing security threat).
What is it about drone operators and their sense of entitlement?
These kind of vermin looking for social media "likes" are going to be the end of recreational drones. Don't feed them, they should get bitch-slapped on the face with a chair and banned from owning drones. This of course being somewhat an extreme measure but when no one can buy or fly a drone without a licence you'll come around
This is a bit of a non-story
1). The carrier has not been officially commissioned yet - it's still in the hands of the builders. It has RN Ratings and Officers onboard but no munitions, counter-measures, aircraft etc. - It's as about as warlike as a cross-channel ferry.
2). The deck is armoured - something the Royal Navy did before the US Navy : In the Pacific Royal Navy Carriers [and there were some there towards the end] survived direct bomb hits that caused major damage and fires on US Carriers with un-armoured decks. Additionally. it has various coverings on it.
3). The original quote from the muppet that did this never mentioned anything about security or explosives. I suspect he is trying to divert attention from the fact that he has broken a number of CAA regulations and is likely to find himself getting fined, not to mention interviews with various agencies who will be more than capable of putting the absolute fear of death into him.
All in all - he is a bit of a twat. Apparently he was trying to get to the gangway to speak to the "Captain" to get his drone back. Again - twat.
I doubt 2kg of Semtex would have done much damage to the deck of an aircraft carrier. They are built to withstand explosions from enemies and aircraft.
If you were standing on the deck nearby, different story of course.
But point taken, other payloads (biological or chemical) may affect operations until cleaned up.
This is just more breathless hype from drone fliers. "OMG, we could, like, totally fly a hundred of these things! And equip them with syringes and suck peoples' blood like giant mosquitoes! And no one could do ANYTHING!!!"
I first read the idea of swarms of drones, maybe 25 years ago. And this was specifically in the context of a military system and asymmetric warfare. "Overwhelm the bloated and slow fighters, radar and missiles with numbers" was the pitch, not to mention "cheap, cheap, cheap!!"
So where are the weapons systems doing this? Is General Dynamics marketing a deployable drone swarm? How about Russia, Great Britain, China? Anyone?
This is just drone wankers masturbating over their favorite technology. It might happen, in certain limited applications, eventually. It hasn't happened in the last quarter century though and still seems unlikely. There is far more military investment in lasers, rail guns and stealth than in drone swarms.
Real drones? Yeah sure, and military ones too, lots of them. Except... those military drones look a lot like the planes they are displacing. The military wants range, lots of advanced sensors, station-keeping abilities, and multiple weapons. All of which means the drones are fairly large, they are heavy, and expensive. They are light and small only in the context of a piloted military aircraft, but they aren't "light and tiny like a consumer drone".
Even the experimental infantry drones, used for scouting and local tactical situations. These aren't carrying weapons and there are no swarms.