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Another thought – the drones are not constantly circling. Could they just be popping up now and again, threatening flights if they move?
Might explain that a 2 min window to find something is rather difficult…?
This is exactly what they are doing.Only fleeting sightings hours apart. I guess the issue is that once you conclude its a deliberate act to screw you over rather that a knob with a new toy getting it wrong you can't really rest easy until the pilot is found.
Who knows of course what communications have been happening and just not published to the great unwashed.
We, a small NGO working in Iraq, looked at anti drone systems a while back and they exist for protecting things like major events and secure areas as any sort of drone overflight is an issue. At best it is just cameras, at worst they carry weaponry. These are fairly standard systems and you start from basic wifi detection systems and add on cameras and eventually get up to countermeasures. There was no way we were allowed countermeasures and in a built up area you can't detect fast enough to get into cover so it wasn't worth it
For Gatwick it's surprising that they don't have something already. The tin foil hat in me suspects it's someone deliberately seeing what can be done and how far they can go ie. not just a couple of folks with small drones.
Who knows of course what communications have been happening and just not published to the great unwashed.
This seems the case the longer it goes on.
Well to reverse the trend I'd go with a .17HMR rifle.
Supersonic round with high accuracy and flat trajectory up to about 120m but as the bullet itself is pretty damn small (about the same as 3 air rifle pellets) it might cause little damage when it came down.... Unless it was onto a baby robin or in an eye.
😉
I doubt they'll shoot it though.
The problem is indeed where it comes down, especially if it is a big device and you have no idea what it is carrying
Samson radar on a T45 parked in Portsmouth would be able to 'see' a drone over Gatwick - but you'd need a truck-mounted CIWS or directed-energy weapon closer-by to finish it off.
I can just imagine the STW Militia turning up at Gatwick to help out with this one 😉
I had no idea how much payload a large commercial drone could carry, 20kgs!
No wonder people are now saying hang on a sec , what if there is a drone with RDX and ball bearings slung underneath? The time in flight is shortened hugely but that would make one hell of a bang Not being used at Gatwick , that is some bored knobber out to disrupt everyones elses xmas travel plans because he spent all his cash on a shitty drone and didnt have enough left over for plane tickets.
leffeboy
Subscriber
The problem is indeed where it comes down, especially if it is a big device and you have no idea what it is carrying
aaaah, that makes sense. The "we can't try to shoot it down, we might hit someone" story just doesn't wash. If you're an expert firearms/ weapons team, your entire training is about hitting the thing you mean to hit, not anything else - including picking the right weapon/ calibre ("biggerer!!" :D) and not missing.
aaaah, that makes sense. The “we can’t try to shoot it down, we might hit someone” story just doesn’t wash. If you’re an expert firearms/ weapons team, your entire training is about hitting the thing you mean to hit, not anything else – including picking the right weapon/ calibre (“biggerer!!” :D) and not missing.
and hitting fast moving targets near the ground in a non military environment with heaps of very expensive hardware, fuel and many other things around along with civilians in both terminals and residential areas.
People are also trained to know when a job is outside of their skill set or safety parameters
Gatwick now telling people not to turn up for flights tomorrow. Blimey.
I wonder if it is some sort of blackmail type thing. Would make the most sense really. No random in their right mind would still be doing this
People are also trained to know when a job is outside of their skill set or safety parameters
Nah, you don't need to do that! Just start a thread, "WWSTD" and follow the advice therein!
Just fire nets at it. Net guns are a thing, aren't they?
Gatwick now telling people not to turn up for flights tomorrow. Blimey.
I think during the upheaval with the liquid scares years back Heathrow were cancelling every other days BA flights to try and get back on track. Once you let somebody get into the airport system you have to deal with them, this way they can save them being on the premises and being pissed off. Even if they start flying 6am tomorrow it will take time to get on top of things and get people, planes & crew in the right place to start fresh.
Quite happy to be taking the train to London this weekend rather than flying
I wonder if this is a ransom situation?
No drones brought down because either they hope to track the perpetrators via the drones and they want the perpetrators enough to leave the drones flying or because the airport has been told there is a hazard present on the drones that would become an issue if the drones were attacked - which could easily be a bluff as who could tell?
Puzzling is that the drones must be coming down for battery replacements unless they are industrial size in order to carry extra power packs?
Drones are not exactly quiet, so why is no one hearing the taking off and landing of them?
I am alarmed there seems to be no planning for a drone situation and that it took so long for the military to be openly present / called in. Still, they cant even stop them doing drops at prisons can they... despair.
aaaah, that makes sense. The “we can’t try to shoot it down, we might hit someone” story just doesn’t wash. If you’re an expert firearms/ weapons team, your entire training is about hitting the thing you mean to hit, not anything else – including picking the right weapon/ calibre (“biggerer!!” :D) and not missing
Mate, go over and post that on arrse - even they will say the same thing. It's one thing hitting a walking person sized target from a kilometre away, it's another ball game entirely hitting something that is can rapidly changing direction with six degrees of freedom.
If it wasn't, we'd have snipers strapped to the sides of boats instead of CIWS.
No drones brought down because either they hope to track the perpetrators via the drones and they want the perpetrators enough to leave the drones flying or because the airport has been told there is a hazard present on the drones that would become an issue if the drones were attacked – which could easily be a bluff as who could tell?
Was discussing this with a AI programmer friend of mine, either it's self charging or someone is being clever and dead dropping batteries at various locations, automating the landing and quickly changing the battery before leaving.
I'm going with climate change activists. Something like this is right up the street of the environmental direct action movement, although admittedly at the more extreme end. It's essentially non-violent, although not without risk as has been pointed out with the fuel situation, causes mass disruption and economic loss, and strikes at the heart of the problem. It's probably a bit over the top, but then again allowing the world to burn because we can't be bothered to change our destructive lifestyles is pretty extreme too. Surprised it's not been done before to be honest. I wonder which airport is next?
Was discussing this with a AI programmer friend of mine, either it’s self charging or someone is being clever and dead dropping batteries at various locations, automating the landing and quickly changing the battery before leaving.
Or they have more than one. Just drop it into a tree and let Matt find it and return it.
I’m going with climate change activists.
See the bit about doing it for political reasons, don't you think they might want to publicise that? Claim some glory? Make a point?
still the army are on site now, hopefully they brought manpads.
Whilst the detection / tracking systems on a Stormer would be good for this, I wouldn't want to be the operator loosing off an HVM in London..
Maybe they shouldn't have scrapped Boris's water canon? That would have been perfect!
J
I'm going for multiple drones popping up from locations, invading briefly on autonomous routes then being left for dead. The in-out nature makes tracking difficult and authorities don't know when/where next one is coming from. I'd assume there's been some sort of "ransom message" that means it's unclear how many drones exist or when the next one is coming. Perps could have planted drones weeks ago, so unlikely to appear on CCTV
Whilst the detection / tracking systems on a Stormer would be good for this
The man portable version could be deployed around the site. As you say though, should probs hold back on the Starstreaks
See the bit about doing it for political reasons, don’t you think they might want to publicise that? Claim some glory? Make a point?
Do that and they risk being caught. There'll be some green anarchist types out there who will only be interested in the chaos it causes and the money it costs the airlines. In fact if it's a sustained campaign it could bring the airline industry to it's knees. Bye bye cheap flights!
On the Beeb 6pm news they inferred a drone was seen around 9pm. Flights stopped and investigations started , the airport was about to re-open around 3am and the drone re-appeared , so they shut down again.
The flight time in each instance may only have been a few minutes, so in theory could be on the same set of batteries. Or, they may well have piggybacked another set of batteries underneath
The perps then land the thing , wait till they hear aircraft and take off again .
The drone is not constantly flying,or else plod would have got out their lacrosse bats and caught it by now
No one was filming their nightride round Tilgate with a drone last night were they?
If it was a bomb they would blast it, but seeing as it’s just an inconvenience, rather than a threat to life the rules of engagement don’t allow you to fire.
WRT Cobrakai’s talk of fuel diversions - “minimum fuel” emergency call means “I might land below my minimum Reserve fuel” which is 30 mins fuel.
A fuel “Mayday” means “I will land below my minimum Reserve Fuel”
A diversion airfield needs to have the required Fire Cover for commercial operations, not just the ability to land.
The standard diversion for LGW is Heathrow. Heathrow is a capacity limited airport, so the first diversions would have arrived & had to join the holding stack. They would have been told “15 minute delay” which they probably didn’t have enough fuel for, and still land with the 30 minutes Minimum Reserves as above.
As soon as this started, Heathrow would have stopped departures, freeing up both runways for diverting aircraft to land.
Hope this makes sense!
You lot worry me over how creative and knowledgeable you on creating a terror attack….!
All you need is a little technical knowledge and a creative imagination.
Personally, I was wondering earlier today if this wasn’t a sort of meat-space DoS attack, it rather has the hallmarks of one, and could be a proof of concept.
I wouldn’t be too surprised to see similar events happening in other parts of the world in future.
This does have a certain Gibsonesque look to it, too. If there are reports of weird flying penguins and mantarays, then things have become seriously meta!
Police now using some interesting tech. Photo earlier on from roof of Gatwick Police station
Tech they are using Fancy Pants Drone Stuff
Only works on DJI drones though
Remember, if they are industrial standard drones and they are basically using them in a disposable fashion - then the cost of this is going to be in the tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands to pull off Mike.
I'd be amazed if they were not!! Not sure what the tennis ball is for?
Should be zero sympathy for anybody doing this. Within minutes it should have been taken out of the sky. If and when traced to the owner, massive fines and jail time to deter anybody and to compensate everybody that has been affected.
I don't think this is actavists.
For one, no one seems to be proclaiming ownership and activists are generally seeking publicity for their cause.
For two, this level of behaviour will destroy sympathy for their cause, even if its something along the lines of climate or pollution of some kind.
I wonder if they are refuelling the drones by very noisy locations, so the engines cannot be heard as they take off and land.
If they are self charging or carrying bulk batteries, I wonder if it would increase the radius they can operate in by much, esp if they are pre programmed.
I wonder if they have an 'inside man' at the airport, would seem a possible.
As no one is being killed (as in terrorists) its got to be for money, the expenditure and planning on this is too high for anything else in my view.
Remember, if they are industrial standard drones and they are basically using them in a disposable fashion – then the cost of this is going to be in the tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands to pull off Mike.
Let me know when they have one there 😉 How much is that for the disruption being caused? It's good value for money so far. Although if you have invented hot swap battery stations that you can hide in the bushes I reckon red bull would be interested or maybe go pro.
rmacattack
Member
Should be zero sympathy for anybody doing this. Within minutes it should have been taken out of the sky. If and when traced to the owner, massive fines and jail time to deter anybody and to compensate everybody that has been affected.
Ah such a radical solution, how did nobody think of that before. We must send this on right away to the police they will be so grateful!!!
Tech they are using Fancy Pants Drone Stuff
Only works on DJI drones though
You'd have to hope that DJI sold those at cost price. Otherwise it's an awesome concept - selling both the problem and the solution.
How many million of pounds is being lost by the airport and air companies, per hour? Would make a big ransom look cheap perhaps?
Within minutes it should have been taken out of the sky.
Within minutes it was already back on the ground
If you’re an expert firearms/ weapons team, your entire training is about hitting the thing you mean to hit, not anything else – including picking the right weapon/ calibre (“biggerer!!” :D) and not missing.
Even the best will miss occasionally and thats ignoring, if you use a 50 cal if it did hit there would be a good chance of it keeping on going. One of the first thing people get taught when learning to shoot is to make sure you know what is behind the target.
That said I would go for Phalanx and position it so the rounds end up in Redhill.
Not sure what the tennis ball is for?
That’s the reward toy for the trained retriever they’ve got ready to go and retrieve the drone after it drops out of the sky...
If you’re an expert firearms/ weapons team, your entire training is about hitting the thing you mean to hit, not anything else – including picking the right weapon/ calibre (“biggerer!!” :D) and not missing.
I’m pretty sure any trained sniper would laugh in your face at the suggestion that they could just shoot a drone out of the sky! Frankly, the idea is preposterous, there is zero chance of predicting where a drone could appear, its altitude, speed, direction of travel and size would make it pretty much impossible to track with a rifle fitted with a telescopic sight, the narrow angle of view through a scope makes tracking unfeasible - try tracking a fast moving close-up aircraft through a 10x telescope or binoculars sometime.
All those people talking about hot swapping batteries etc - have you clocked exactly how little sighting we are talking about? I'd be amazed if the drones used have been in the air for more that 10 minutes in total in the last 24 hours. Up, get seen, back down again. And repeat a few hours later. Pretty much any commercial or even top end toy could keep this up for another couple of days before it needs it's first battery change.
And the shooting it down etc - Gatwick perimeter is 10km long. You are going to be very luck to be at the right place at the right time to be in range with anything realistic. In comparison to protecting the immediate airspace around a warship this is a massive task.
Thanks for the reminder Dan. Mats 1 has been in the loft for while and its hard enough trying to keep up with the changes over the past 2 years! We did get a briefing that min fuel was a statement of commitment to the designated airfield.
If only these people could see the safety implications they have caused.....
"All those people talking about hot swapping batteries etc – have you clocked exactly how little sighting we are talking about? I’d be amazed if the drones used have been in the air for more that 10 minutes in total in the last 24 hours."
The only drones I have any knowledge of have batteries that last about 20 mins, which does not seem a lot, but then they are only consumer photography drones. What sort of flight time do commercials have on a standard battery?
Live updates here
This thread has it all : Activists who are shy from publicity, weapons experts, military grade snipers, the finest tech minds in the world but what we need is some good old CCTV we can enhance!!
The only drones I have any knowledge of have batteries that last about 20 mins, which does not seem a lot, but then they are only consumer photography drones. What sort of flight time do commercials have on a standard battery?
So at least enough for another day. Most DJIs bar the very smallest will do 26/27mins. Full on commercials up to 35-40mins.