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Over 110,000 Passengers on 760 Flights Disrupted by Drones Flying Over One of the UK's Busiest Airports (bbc.com)
Gatwick's runway has been shut since Wednesday night, when two devices were seen flying over the perimeter fence. The airport said at about 12:00 GMT on Thursday a drone had been spotted "in the last hour" and the runway would not open "until it was safe to do so". From a report: About 110,000 passengers on 760 flights were due to fly on Thursday. Disruption could last "several days". Those due to travel have been told to check the status of their flight, while Easyjet told its passengers not to go to Gatwick if their flights have been cancelled. Sussex Police said it was not terror-related but a "deliberate act" of disruption, describing the drones as of "industrial specification". The shutdown started just after 21:00 GMT on Wednesday, when two drones were spotted flying "over the perimeter fence and into where the runway operates from". The runway briefly reopened at 03:01 but was closed again about 45 minutes later amid "a further sighting of drones".
Nobody gets injured, but you shut down the airport for fear of people being injured. If you use autonomous pre-programed GPS based drones, there isn't even necessarily a radio signal to trace back to the person who launched the drone, potentially from several miles away.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Sounds like someone trying to force the regulators hand. What better way to prompt regulation than fucking with the second largest airport in the UK at one of the busiest times of the year.
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You're missing two very crucial things. 1) Nothing in British law, nor in any western laws I'm aware of, allow civil entities to engage in radioelectronic combat, and their radiotelephony laws blatantly prohibit such attacks. 2) None of the hard kill approaches are legal, nor are they ethical over populated areas. 3) a fucking net over the airport? You're retarded.
The real answer is to publicly hang the assholes who did this (unless they have brown skin, then deny it happened)
Where are the control hijackers and the control triangulators and the GPS jammers and the laser weapons and the trained falcons and the dudes with shotguns loaded with birdshot!?!? How can this laughable shitshow go on for over 12 hours!?
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
You'd prefer to hear some more boring stories about tunnels?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
So what radio frequency is used by the drone controllers? It would be simple to build a jamming transmitter that could disable the link between the pirate pilots and their drones. I know nothing about drones
We know you don't, because you don't even know they use spread-spectrum radio these days, and in spectrum you can't jam without causing problems for other users.
It might also be fun to build a directed EMP "weapon" that could be used to take them down when visually sighted.
If you could build one of those, every military on the planet would love to talk to you.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
DDOS even works for this.
Drone
Denial
Of
Service
True, but you would expect the Sussex Police forces Tactical Firearms Unit (the ones in which Gatwick resides) to have access to shotguns.
Attempting to shot them down with pistols or rifles would be stupid, but you would have thought they would have broken out the shotguns by now
Pffft. Do I look like a browser?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
True, but you would expect the Sussex Police forces Tactical Firearms Unit (the ones in which Gatwick resides) to have access to shotguns.
Attempting to shot them down with pistols or rifles would be stupid, but you would have thought they would have broken out the shotguns by now
Whether or not they currently have shotguns or not, I don't know. I'm not sure that shotguns are useful for most policing applications. I'm sure they could procure them in the future if they needed them though.
More useful, if drones become a persistent problem would be a drone gun. There have been several developed that work like an EMP gun from science fiction... basically using pulse of radiowaves to damage the sensitive electronic equipment on a drone. They can knock the drones out the sky without worrying about where the bits of shotgun spray that don't hit the drone might land.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Directed microwaves. Best overall option.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
You might want to learn what shotguns are and how they work before putting stupid comments like this on the internet. Here's a hint: Check the effective range of a shotgun and then check how high these drones are flying, and consider how large the airport is.
You'd have been less wrong if you'd said, "sounds like the Sussex Police force needs an AA battery".
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
The responses here are hilarious. "Why don't the police just shoot the drone flying 400' up a mile away on the other side of the airport with a shotgun?" "Why don't they use their EMP weapons?" "Why don't they jam GPS?" "USE EAGLES!!!"
The lack of understanding of the size, scope, and both political and technical components of this problem are amazing.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
Safe up until a drone gets sucked into a passenger jet's engine, killing a couple hundred people when it crashes. All because some jackass doesn't have the common sense to avoid airports with his drone.
This is why we can't have nice things... idiots who can't be bothered to think about anyone except themselves. Especially assholes who are doing shit like this "for the lulz" like this incident appears to be.
THE SOFTWARE, IT NO WORKY!!!
... But even a well-aimed bullet should solve the problem. ...
It's impossible to consistently hit an erratically moving small target at range with a bullet. Phalanx CIWS systems do it with bursts of 20mm machine gun fire, and that would cause casualties if done over populated areas. Shotguns don't have the range. Air burst flak shells could work, but that would mean firing explosive munitions at low altitudes over a populated area.
My concern about using the eagles is the risk of injury to the eagles.
Directed energy is probably the best option.
How about shotguns?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
"But terrorists can use this en masse remotely and in large numbers to effectively shut down air travel"
Terrorists aren't interested. If they wanted to disrupt air-traffic, a couple of calls with bomb threats will do the job much easier.
A disposable phone is cheaper than a drone and it can be used from anywhere in the world.
" That's where everyone went to fly kites back when I was a kid. Lots of open space and often some good scenery worth capturing on video during a flight." But no! So many of the State and National parks are starting to ban drone usage too!"
A large field with 20 or 30 kites is fun for everyone, the fliers, the people walking by, etc.
A large field with 20 or 30 drones is not. It sounds like a dirtbike in the sky, which scares the birds, and generally annoys the other park goers.
The RC aircraft people; and the model rocket people... never were a problem like this. First they were a lot rarer. The hobby was moderately expensive; and it required some actual skill and practice both to maintain the craft and to fly it, they only ever operated in big wide *empty* open spaces, and by and large they were extremely respectful of everyone else.
"Even ... Veteran's Day Parade, I wanted to use my drone to capture an overhead view of all the floats and vehicles going down our main street"
Drone owners on the other hand think they should all be allowed to litter the sky with them over a crowded street in the middle of town...
"If my dad was still alive to see this, I'm sure he'd be really agitated about all the regulations. He grew up building gasoline powered model airplanes and later, got his pilot's license ... and would NEVER go along with all of these restrictions on private individuals flying drones for fun."
Hard to say. I don't know your Dad. But riddle me this, did he ever EVER fly his gasoline powered model in town, over a crowded street, during a parade?
I know mine would have slapped me upside the head for even suggesting it.
"I was able to stop the Airport alone with my skills" probably gives the person a false sense of empowerment.
In what way is that false? The effect is very real, and probably a lot more than was imagined when the people sent in the drones (though honestly I think it more likely the drones were jus there to take video for fun).
Now that people know how easy it is to shut down an airport... well hang on folks, we are in for one rocky ride as the nutters seize on this as a way to use airports for political messaging.
In the end they are just going to have to learn to keep airports running despite "sightings of drones".
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Airports already have hunters to shoot and scare flocks of birds. Just let them hunt drones too.
These were apparently commercial programmable drones capable of operating without radio control.
That aside, RC copters are a subset of 'drones' so stop being a cock.