Gatwick drones -what utter stupidity and selfishness

[Jaded]

Drones were reported again at 12pm and again since 9pm. Further a drone may take out an engine or the cockpit windscreen.

Personally if i was in a group that wanted to close the airport i would want 4 or 5 people each with a drone. Take off at 2km with a preprogrammed flight path into the controlled airspace and the out to another location. While it flies drive to the exit point pick up drone for fresh batteries and programme a new route. Travel to new launch point. If each person launches in sequence the you are only flying 2 or 3 times per day. As the launch and retrival locations are not repeated or linked the chances of the police finding you are low.

* dons foil hat* boom imigration is reduced as no planes arrive. *removes foil hat and extracts toungue from cheek*

Book him, Danno... 

[bludger]

The other thought that occurs is that there's a less palatable need to shut down Gatwick airport, and drone flights are a plausible reason that avoids mass panic.  But that fails the Occam's razor test...

How about this for paranoia: the perp is sizing up to make a killing from a portfolio invested in drone defence products and is hedging the drone service suppliers.

[Jaded]

Just seen this:

"We haven't yet identified the specific make and model of the drone. That will influence our tactical options."

So, basically, there are no tech solutions against these drones just yet... if they cannot identify them, they cannot deal with them.

[Jaded]

The other thought that occurs is that there's a less palatable need to shut down Gatwick airport, and drone flights are a plausible reason that avoids mass panic.  But that fails the Occam's razor test...

How about this for paranoia: the perp is sizing up to make a killing from a portfolio invested in drone defence products and is hedging the drone service suppliers.

The perp owns a catering business in Gatwick. 

[bludger]

Just seen this:

"We haven't yet identified the specific make and model of the drone. That will influence our tactical options."

So, basically, there are no tech solutions against these drones just yet... if they cannot identify them, they cannot deal with them.

I mean there's one solution that's surely guaranteed to work... Just don't think the government is keen on the PR it would create.

[Kim]

Just seen this:

"We haven't yet identified the specific make and model of the drone. That will influence our tactical options."

So, basically, there are no tech solutions against these drones just yet... if they cannot identify them, they cannot deal with them.

I were the authorities and could be reasonably sure that there's a radio signal pointing to the location of the perp, I'd take a very different approach than if I thought there wasn't.

Shooting/jamming/GPS-spoofing/EMPing/lasering/eagleing/Dastardly-&-Muttley-with-a-net-ing down the drone just means you're left waiting around for the next one to pop up.

[Jaded]

Gatwick looks to have loads of small, hedged fields around it. Ideal for a hunkered down drone operator.

I guess my previous comment about road access needs further thought - the easiest way of stopping bad stuff from roads is to close them.

I predict a large amount of buy up and plough tiny fields into megafields going on about important airports.

[Feline]

I reckon a rural airport, like say Bristol, would be very easy to spot anyone within 2km launching or recharging them as there are so few people legitimately lurking out and about in the rain in these parts. I would imagine the population within that radius of Gatwick is larger?

[Jakob]

The notion (in the press) that any kind of legislation would have prevented this is silly. The operator is already breaking the law.

[Jaded]

I reckon a rural airport, like say Bristol, would be very easy to spot anyone within 2km launching or recharging them as there are so few people legitimately lurking out and about in the rain in these parts. I would imagine the population within that radius of Gatwick is larger?

Good point. At many small airports a helicopter with infrared camera would be pretty useful.

[Jakob]

If they have actual evidence of the drone, they should release it. Given the previous incidents, I'm still skeptical that there actually is a drone involved.

[Regulator]

We’re supposed to be flying from Gatwick tomorrow.   

I did briefly ponder taking one of my rifles with me...

[ElyDave]

We are looking at the need for travel from the wrong perspective.  Just suppose that flying would kill everyone we know.  The bad news is that we don't know whether it will or not.  We do know that flying is currently thought to contribute around 2% of the CO2 we are putting into the atmosphere.  By the time the ice sheets start to move it will be many years to late to do anything about it.  There won't be many people left after a 66m sea level rise, especially not after the wars over the diminishing land area.  Civilisation as we know it would pretty much cease to exist.  We need to make lots of changes to the way we live if we intend to survive the next 100 years.  Flying being one of them.

This is the nub of the problem isn't it, both personally and politically.

From the "I quite fancy it a bit warmer" brigade, to the "its not man made so there's nothing to do", the " its all too expensive" and the "yes, its horrible, but not for another hundred years"

Unlike kaboom, fiery DETH, its not immediate and so ends up too abstract or SEP.   None of us for example will be around in 100 years to see the outcome, an I've not seen a single politician in a position of power willing to risk that power for something 100 years away.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I haven't seen any explanation of why the airport is still closed. Are the drones still flying around? In which case they must have amazing battery life or be very well organized with relays of the things. Also, given it's reported they've brought the army in, how come they haven't just vaporized them?

Presumably because they haven't caught anyone yet - there's too high a risk of them just coming back when they restart?

I was thinking along those lines but wondered if there was something else or if the drone/s were still flying. I guess now the principle is proved, it'll happen at various times at various airports by protesters eco and political as well as various other nefarious reasons. Also just for the lolz, until someone accidentally causes a plane crash.

I seriously question just how much damage a drone could do, to be honest.

I once watched a documentary about aircraft engines. There was someone whose job it was, and I really envied this person, to fire dead chickens into jet engines running at full bore. It was awesome. There was a brief red plume out the back of the engine, and it merrily carried on engineing.

Of course - it would be pretty easy to weaponise a drone; reduce some of its weight, and replace with explosives. Maybe. I dunno - I'm not a terrorist. But I would like the job of firing dead chickens into jet engines.

I have a few versions of real film, filmed at different camera speeds (maybe originals) of various things being sucked and thrown in to jet engines.  These were stolen from skips.

Different from the films you normally find in skips. Those are more of rogerzilla interest. 

[MikeFromLFE]

A good airport to do stuff at is a fairly rural one with a long perimeter fence and easy road access.

If you believe the marketing then East Midlands Airport is the second busiest freight airport in the UK.
 It is rural, midway between Leicester, Derby & Nottingham, with a huge perimeter, and operates 24 hours a day. The road network is not dense, but the current mud bath that is the construction of a massive freight interchange would seem to give good cover.
 If you wanted to disrupt economic activity then EMA would seem to be an easy target, plus they might well disrupt road traffic on the M1 / M42 as a free bonus.

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[ElyDave]

https://www.rigzone.com/news/arctic_lng_contract_goes_to_saipem-19-dec-2018-157756-article/

Going OT, but this is the kind of stuff I get in my inbox daily.  The dash to gas is real and not going away soon, this is not being driven by governments in any real way, but by consumers and the industry itself, as an existential threat.

And then there's this https://oilandgasclimateinitiative.com/, an initiative about nothing other than credibiity and perception - with methane 25x as damaging as CO2, fugitive emissions from gas cannot be seen to be a problem as they will (or at least have the potential to) more than outweigh the efficiency gains as a fuel.  Almost all the majors are now targetting methane emission reductions in a big way.

[ElyDave]

A good airport to do stuff at is a fairly rural one with a long perimeter fence and easy road access.

If you believe the marketing then East Midlands Airport is the second busiest freight airport in the UK.
 It is rural, midway between Leicester, Derby & Nottingham, with a huge perimeter, and operates 24 hours a day. The road network is not dense, but the current mud bath that is the construction of a massive freight interchange would seem to give good cover.
 If you wanted to disrupt economic activity then EMA would seem to be an easy target, plus they might well disrupt road traffic on the M1 / M42 as a free bonus.

Sent from my KFDOWI using Tapatalk

I'd be heading for a refinery or a fuel dump if I wanted to cause maximum disruption, though the risk to me would undoubtedly be bigger

[rogerzilla]

Gatwick only has one working runway, which makes it slightly easier to target, but I don't think Heathrow would be much harder.  Some drones have a 10km control radius, so you could be sat at home in Staines.  The "line of sight" rule is irrelevant if your drone has a decent camera and GPS, and you are going to commit a much more serious offence anyway.

[Cudzoziemiec]

There's always the possibility it was done specifically to discredit Extinction Rebellion-type causes. You'd want a high profile target for that – a regional airport just wouldn't get you the same exposure – but then you'd probably also issue a (fake, obviously) declaration in the name of the targeted group.

[PaulF]

Now that they’ve proved a capacity to disrupt in their shoes (and if I were so motivated) I’d move operations to Stansted today*, Birmingham tomorrow etc.. Whilst with current resources it might just be possible to keep Gatwick open but they’d be stretched keeping all our airports open.

*that would have the collateral benefit of p!ssing off Michael Ryan which probably isn’t a bad thing

[SoreTween]

Gatwick is overlooked by a number of hills.  I can think of a few quiet spots on footpaths around Stan Hill, Russ Hill & Norwood Hill from which the whole airfield can be seen.  You're close enough at some to monitor what is going on with a pair of binoculars so no need to carry incriminating receiving equipment.   If you wanted to watch the PoV feed much of the North Downs would have line of sight to something 400' in the air.  I thought the camera feeds were WiFi, can that really reach 10Km?

[mrcharly-YHT]

Why do you need an operator?

Most sophisticated drones can be given a pre-programmed flight path. As pointed out, Gatwick is surrounded by small fields.

Multiple drones. Program in a fairly chaotic flight path. patch on a board that substitutes some of the controller functions (start, load flight path, load different flight path). Use a board that can receive text messages and have a number of pre-set flight paths.

Put several drones in fields.

Now retire to a distance and send your texts. Watch the police|army chase drones. Send texts to change paths as appropriate. Retrieve drones when you can.

[The Family Cyclist]

Stansted would be a piece of the proverbial surrounding area is farmland. However it is shooting season and I know a lot of the farmers round that way so think it would be mistaken for a pheasant rather quickly

[trekker12]

I think we should be realistic about shooting down drones.

Shotguns are short range scatter weapons, you have to be stood in the same field as the pheasant or drone to actually get one of the pellets to hit it. It seems the operator of this drone was smart enough to have it moving around from location to location before anyone got within range of the same field.

Longer range you have the other end of the scale, a marksman with a sniper rifle. Range can exceed two miles but by then you are looking at a small fast moving target through an eyescope on full zoom with variable winter wind conditions. It's possible to hit a human under such conditions like they do in the movies but that is quite large and slow moving in comparison to a drone.

In the middle you have a soldier with an SA80 assault rifle. Very well trained and accurate but only slightly longer range than the shotgun with a standard plain sight and an eyeball. He or she stands absolutely no chance of hitting such a thing other than by filling the sky with lead and hoping the drone flies into it. Hence the police not wanting to consider such an option in open public areas.

[ian]

We are looking at the need for travel from the wrong perspective.  Just suppose that flying would kill everyone we know.  The bad news is that we don't know whether it will or not.  We do know that flying is currently thought to contribute around 2% of the CO2 we are putting into the atmosphere.  By the time the ice sheets start to move it will be many years to late to do anything about it.  There won't be many people left after a 66m sea level rise, especially not after the wars over the diminishing land area.  Civilisation as we know it would pretty much cease to exist.  We need to make lots of changes to the way we live if we intend to survive the next 100 years.  Flying being one of them.

This is the nub of the problem isn't it, both personally and politically.

From the "I quite fancy it a bit warmer" brigade, to the "its not man made so there's nothing to do", the " its all too expensive" and the "yes, its horrible, but not for another hundred years"

Unlike kaboom, fiery DETH, its not immediate and so ends up too abstract or SEP.   None of us for example will be around in 100 years to see the outcome, an I've not seen a single politician in a position of power willing to risk that power for something 100 years away.

My similar point earlier (which I fear was missed in its subtlety, reminder to use the usual hammer) was that few people will change their lives without direct motivation (and more importantly, they won't vote for it). And we're all like this, tbh. We all have a self-justification. For the school run. For the SUV. For the foreign holiday.*

Which, of course, means individuals will never solve this problem. It requires government. That thing we're eroding away in favour of popularism.

*for the confessional, I grew up in a family who went literally nowhere, so yes, I want to see the world. So I have. On the counter, I live a measured lifestyle (by decadent western lifestyle standards) without the two oversized cars (one little one), don't buy a lot of crap, and don't have any kids. And if that sounds like a self-justification, that's because it's precisely what it is.