https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-46803713

Will Heathrow deal with it any better?

How many people will suggest hitting a moving target at night on the outskirts of London with a high powered rifle as the ‘obvious simple solution’?

But this is impossible, Chris Grayling said in Parliament just yesterday..

“Passengers can have confidence their journeys will not be disrupted in the future”

Depending which way they are pointing could have the M25 as a backstop. It will be fine.

How many people will suggest hitting a moving target at night on the outskirts of London with a high powered rifle as the ‘obvious simple solution’?

Look, it’s dead simple: if the hawks can’t do it, it just needs a sniper. The bigger the rifle, the better.

More likely there’s no drone at all.

What hat for shooting down imaginary drones?
Tinfoil?

“Delayed flying home to Manchester”.
The heart bleeds.

Panic over. There wasn’t one.

Chris Grayling said

I think I’ve spotted the flaw in your argument …

Look a drone!!! *

* Is that all it takes to terrorise air travel these days? Crazy times!

To be fair, if it’s an imaginary drone, they’re the hardest ones to shoot down

Someone in Parliament suggested making the Drone / Airport exclusion zone bigger. Like that would somehow stop you flying your Drone over the Airport. Well, it might if your a law abiding citizen.

Unless they ban them completely, then collect all the ones sold and then police imports, they cannot stop it happening. I heard that the radio signal is the same as Wi-Fi, so to jam that you would have to stop Wi-Fi in that area. Possible, but unlikely to be done.

Is there an actual workable way to stop them ?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-46754489

Seems they are buying equipment.

Few options that are widely known.
-Jam the signal between the operator and the drone
-Hack the drone, they operate over wifi.
-Attack it with another drone, either by crashing into it, launching a net.

Its pretty ridiculous that nothing is in place already, surely these places have regular risk/vulnerability reviews and implement measures as a result.

To be fair, if it’s an imaginary drone, they’re the hardest ones to shoot down

Not if you have an imaginary rifle.

You’d have to get the imaginary SAS in to fire the rifle though and they’re all tucked up on Channel 4 at the moment

One observer interviewed said it looked like a UFO.

-Jam the signal between the operator and the drone
-Hack the drone, they operate over wifi.

neither of those work if the dron has just been preprogrammed to follow a flight path then return (or not) to base. you could, for £500 or so, pre-set it to fly around an airport, casing chaos, then land atop some awkward place once batteries are nearly done (top of the control tower) and it’d be extremely hard to block

Not if you have an imaginary rifle.

If people start shooting imaginary rifles around busy airports a lot of imaginary people are going to get killed. Do you want that on your conscience?

Won’t somebody think of the imaginary children!!!

One observer interviewed said it looked like a UFO.

The BBC camera man said it was distinctly a drone as it hovered above him for a short time. He was fairly clear and believable really.

The BBC camera man said it was distinctly a drone as it hovered above him for a short time.

Great, so he had a very clear view and a broadcast quality camera. A quick look at the footage should be conclusive.

(I’m not saying there was no drone at Heathrow (yet), but I’m pretty sure there wasn’t at Gatwick.)

it’d be extremely hard to block

Muslamic Ray-guns are the only solution.

Great, so he had a very clear view and a broadcast quality camera. A quick look at the footage should be conclusive.

Did he say he was working or had his camera with him? (It’s in the BBC link) just another credible witness to an object hovering over the restricted air space that looked and behaved exactly like a drone. Even if it’s not a drone, an object hovering inside the restricted airspace is enough to shut down the airport.

We know after you interviewed all the people with (as police described them) credible sightings from Gatwick to draw those conclusions.

Great, so he had a very clear view and a broadcast quality camera.

He’s a BBC cameraman who happened to be near Heathrow….. he wasn’t working and didn’t have a camera with him.
Apparently he works with drones so probably knows what they look like.

another credible witness

Hard to tell if his sighting is credible as a sighting without knowing what he says he saw. If he’s got a clear description that matches a second independent clear description, and it’s known that there were no ‘good-guy’ Drones in the air, then I’d agree.

If it’s like the Gatwick incident, where the witnesses saw stuff (often) at night and (as far as we know) couldn’t get a clear consistent description then I’d question the term ‘credible’.

We’ll find out during the day, no doubt.

didn’t have a camera with him.

What a shame.

Changing the subject completely:

Stop press:

IT WAS DARK, he was driving!

“he was driving on the M25 past Heathrow airport at about 17:45 GMT”

FFS.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-46804425

What a shame.

Changing the subject completely:

He was driving.

Why does everyone have to be so cynical about the sightings? Can you take a decent picture of a drone 300ft in the air with a camera phone? While driving?

Camera technology on phones is still light years away from the human eye capability. Even if you were a decent photographer with an SLR and a good zoom lens it would be hard to take a decent pic of a rapidly moving object in the dark 300ft in the air.

If it’s like the Gatwick incident, where the witnesses saw stuff (often) at night and (as far as we know) couldn’t get a clear consistent description then I’d question the term ‘credible’.

It’s the words of the police, who have taken all the sightings and got a list of ones they think are credible having you know asked some of those questions.

Can you take a decent picture of a drone 300ft in the air with a camera phone? While driving?

…and in the dark.

No, no you can’t. Nor can you get a good view of it. Nor can you estimate height of a light in the sky. Warships have fired shells at Venus before.

Hence it’s not a credible sighting.

It’s the words of the police

The police have been known to make mistakes from time to time. In the case of Gatwick they are now also rather invested in it remaining “credible”. Be a tad embarrassing otherwise and possibly costly.

Can you take a decent picture of a drone 300ft in the air with a camera phone? While driving?

Nope. However my ability to look properly at things is also badly reduced or rather it is already been used at looking at the road rather than random things up in the air.
So the report has reduced credibility due to that.

Although that said in fairness at that time on the M25 he may have been stationary.

Hence it’s not a credible sighting.

It is a credible sighting…not a confirmed sighting of a drone, but a credible sighting of something…a UFO (not in the extra terrestrial sense), and until you do get a sighting to confirm or deny what it is then the airport closes down. What other course of action would you suggest? The consequences of playing fast and loose could result in an aircraft accident….the consequences are too great to simply fob this off in such a nonchalant manner. Would you make the call knowing you could have caused or endangered the lives of hundreds of people and be looking at significant jail time?

The police have been known to make mistakes from time to time.

….and they described Carl Beech’s accusations as ‘credible and true’.

…and they’ve already acknowledged there may not have been a Drone at all at Gatwick.

Heathrow? Who knows, but if the sole evidence of a drone is a red and green light in the sky around Gatwick then I’m betting not. Maybe more information will come out during the day to confirm the sighting.

BBC cameraman Martin Roberts said he was driving on the M25 past Heathrow airport at about 17:45 GMT when he saw what he believes was a drone.
“I could see, I’d say around 300 feet up, very bright, stationary flashing red and green lights, over the Harmondsworth area,” he said.
“I could tell it was a drone – these things have got quite distinctive lights – not a helicopter.
“The lights were very close together. It was a very clear night and the object was stationary, it was turning very, very slightly. I could see it very clearly, I’d say for about four to five minutes.”

Professional cameraman, clear night, 4-5 minutes watching it. I reckon that’s pretty conclusive.

Some muppet will pick holes in it though. You lot sound like wacko conspiracy theorists.

So, it was or it wasn’t Aliens ?

I need to know.

I’m assuming he was stationary on the M25 then if he was watching it for 4-5 minutes…?

Professional cameraman, clear night, 4-5 minutes watching it. I reckon that’s pretty conclusive.

Conclusive that he saw lights around Heathrow? Or conclusive that the lights he saw were attached to a drone modified to fly in restricted areas like airports and flying at 300ft somewhere it shouldn’t have been?

It’s quite a leap from the first to the second.

How could he tell if it was a large drone, far away, or a small drone, near?
Am I stupid, or wouldn’t a shot gun do the job with little risk to anyone else?

Am I stupid, or wouldn’t a shot gun do the job with little risk to anyone else?

How many enthusiastic shotgun wielding people do you need with adequate vetting to patrol all of the UK’s airports to be able to take the drone down?

Three guns for high pheasant shooting

From the pheasant shooters

Range of a modern 12 bore shotgun
Maybe George Digweed can break a clay at a distance of over 100 yards but you need to think about the actual range of a modern 12 bore shotgun. Breaking a clay at 100 yards plus is not the same as killing a pheasant.

The versatility and quality of modern cartridges mean that most shotguns are quite adequate up to 50 yards without a change of chokes. If you put the shot in the right place even a 28gram load will be effective.

What about the more extreme birds at 60, 70 and even 80 yards and over?
How easy is it to tell the difference between a 60-yard bird and a 70-yard bird when they are right up over your head.

You do hear of people shooting over-and-under guns with 32″ barrels, full chokes and 52gram loads killing one bird in 10. If you ask me most of those birds were simply out of range.

And it’s down to sheer luck if you hit anything above a 70-yard bird.

70 Yards is 201 feet, so you are heading out of range really quickly especially if you are not directly under it.

Warships have fired shells at Venus before.

Did they hit it?