As the article says, it is surprising how easy and cheap it is to shut down a world-class airport and disrupt 100,000's of people. They haven't even caught the last person.
They made two arrests for Gatwick.
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Drone Sighting Halts Departures at Heathrow Airport
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Re: Drone Sighting Halts Departures at Heathrow Airport
#32Part of me wonders if this is a long term problem with solving - causing so much annoyance with so little effort - or if this is just a fad. Time will tell. One thing is for sure, it's very easy to cause a lot of harm. Much of our society relies on assuming people are good. Sabotaging infrastructure is as easy as loosening or cutting bolts on a bridge.
> Sabotaging infrastructure is as easy as loosening or cutting bolts on a bridge.
The issue there is that someone has to walk up a bridge with tools and start loosening bolts. Drones are somewhat remote, in that they could hide in the bushes some distance away. And most of all, I can see drone operators thinking "it's fun" as they are not damaging or deliberately flying into planes. It's wrong of course, but in their minds they don't see it equivalent to cutting bolts on a bridge.
Re: Drone Sighting Halts Departures at Heathrow Airport
#33Just as in Gatwick before this, the police and the airport are not able to produce even grainy footage of a drone that is supposedly "buzzing" the tower. Gatwick reported "67 sightings", but couldn't confirm if some (all?) were their own drones [1]. And now Parliament is tabling new powers for the police [2]. Was there ever any evidence presented that there was ever a drone present? Is there any evidence that this wa…
Does Heathrow bear a resposibility to prove anything to you or any other random person on the internet? You seem to be insinuating some conspiracy by asking vague questions.
They bear a responsibility to the flying public (i.e. us).
Re: Drone Sighting Halts Departures at Heathrow Airport
#34As the article says, it is surprising how easy and cheap it is to shut down a world-class airport and disrupt 100,000's of people. They haven't even caught the last person.
Didn't they say, that maybe it was their own drones? https://www.rte.ie/news/world/2018/1229/1019460-gatwick-dron...
Re: Drone Sighting Halts Departures at Heathrow Airport
#35Once the idea of alien UFOs became widespread, the number of reported cases rose. Once everybody has the idea that drones may be flying around airports, will people start misidentifying and reporting other phenomena as drones (causing chaos)?
Re: Drone Sighting Halts Departures at Heathrow Airport
#36Just as in Gatwick before this, the police and the airport are not able to produce even grainy footage of a drone that is supposedly "buzzing" the tower. Gatwick reported "67 sightings", but couldn't confirm if some (all?) were their own drones [1]. And now Parliament is tabling new powers for the police [2]. Was there ever any evidence presented that there was ever a drone present? Is there any evidence that this wa…
Does Heathrow bear a resposibility to prove anything to you or any other random person on the internet? You seem to be insinuating some conspiracy by asking vague questions.
if they're going to use it as a justification to pass new powers, then yes they absolutely do
Re: Drone Sighting Halts Departures at Heathrow Airport
#37Just as in Gatwick before this, the police and the airport are not able to produce even grainy footage of a drone that is supposedly "buzzing" the tower. Gatwick reported "67 sightings", but couldn't confirm if some (all?) were their own drones [1]. And now Parliament is tabling new powers for the police [2]. Was there ever any evidence presented that there was ever a drone present? Is there any evidence that this wa…
Does Heathrow bear a resposibility to prove anything to you or any other random person on the internet? You seem to be insinuating some conspiracy by asking vague questions.
They do have a responsibility to intending passengers who are being inconvenienced and put out of pocket solely on the basis of a corporation being over-reactive.
There's really no disadvantage to airport authorities acting like this and only positives for them in protecting themselves from financial risk in the case that there is a drone. Plus, perhaps new powers will be passed that prevent them having to actually invest in anti-drone technology. Double-win!
Re: Drone Sighting Halts Departures at Heathrow Airport
#38> The airport said it had spent several million pounds to purchase the equipment. I feel like this is a problem some smart people could solve quickly if they were asked, similar to the healthcare.gov situation. Ask some MIT students to come up with a solution over a weekend and I bet they would deliver. Knocking a slow moving object out of the sky is literally not rocket science.
The tricky part I'm guessing is doing it safely without collateral damage, especially in a crowded area like an airport. A bullet or other kinetic object could do damage if it falls back down to earth. A directed energy/RF weapon could possibly fry other electronics in aircraft nearby as well.
You might be interested to hear that anti-drone net guns are already on the market to address this.
This [1] is a handheld one, though automated permanent installations that use acoustic signatures to track drones have already been installed on embassies and such.
Re: Drone Sighting Halts Departures at Heathrow Airport
#39Just as in Gatwick before this, the police and the airport are not able to produce even grainy footage of a drone that is supposedly "buzzing" the tower. Gatwick reported "67 sightings", but couldn't confirm if some (all?) were their own drones [1]. And now Parliament is tabling new powers for the police [2]. Was there ever any evidence presented that there was ever a drone present? Is there any evidence that this wa…
They were not all of their drones, because reports were coming in before the police had launched any drones. Among the people reporting drone sightings before the police turned up at Gatwick were pilots
Remember when a pilot at Heathrow said a drone crashed into his plane a few years ago? After an investigation and lack of any evidence, I think the consensus was that it was probably a plastic bag.
Re: Drone Sighting Halts Departures at Heathrow Airport
#40> The airport said it had spent several million pounds to purchase the equipment. I feel like this is a problem some smart people could solve quickly if they were asked, similar to the healthcare.gov situation. Ask some MIT students to come up with a solution over a weekend and I bet they would deliver. Knocking a slow moving object out of the sky is literally not rocket science.
isn't it kind of rocket science?