71–80 of 150 posts
To those wondering why we can't just take down the drones, it's not as simple as a jammer or a shotgun. Jamming drones is a non starter for the most part. You can make a drone operate on just about any frequency you want and with modern equipment becoming more frequency agile, this will only get worse. A simple thought experiment would be a drone using GSM for video and control. Can you just jam all phones? Obviously…
To those wondering why we can't just take down the drones, it's not as simple as a jammer or a shotgun. Jamming drones is a non starter for the most part. You can make a drone operate on just about any frequency you want and with modern equipment becoming more frequency agile, this will only get worse. A simple thought experiment would be a drone using GSM for video and control. Can you just jam all phones? Obviously…
Smaller scale SAMs with close range burst capabilities seem like they might avoid all of these issues, but tracking would be critical. Ideally the blast would at worst minorly damage but not crash an airliner and at best leave some small dents in aircraft skin but take down a smaller-scale drone. If you take your "reasons why not" logic too far, however, you end up asking "how do we take down an enemy jet" which, I m…
Now, that's not to say that the equation wouldn't change if there was a realistic threat that someone would mount explosives on a drone and deliberately try to bring an airliner down but for once we can be thankful for the nature of reactionary policy; we can get away with being reactionary here.
Edit: to go on a bit of a tangent, I think the best path forward at this point is to have a system that can detect and locate fast moving radio emitters within the perimeter of an airport that don't correspond with an ADS-B target. Such a system might allow you to track the target and attempt to figure out where it came from.
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Err, yes, yes they do if it's going to be used as justification to pass sweeping new police powers.
Isn't the responsibility on the law makers who are using the issue at the airport as justification, not the airport itself? Heathrow isn't somehow trying to pass laws themselves are they? (Caveat: Maybe I just don't understand how British law works?)
The responsibility on the police is to confirm sightings before arresting people for flying drones over the airport (the police arrested a couple for flying drones over Gatwick when there was no evidence of drones over Gatwick).
The lawmakers should support their power grab with evidence but they are more interested in grabbing power.
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Err, yes, yes they do if it's going to be used as justification to pass sweeping new police powers.
Isn't the responsibility on the law makers who are using the issue at the airport as justification, not the airport itself? Heathrow isn't somehow trying to pass laws themselves are they? (Caveat: Maybe I just don't understand how British law works?)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Smaller scale SAMs with close range burst capabilities seem like they might avoid all of these issues, but tracking would be critical. Ideally the blast would at worst minorly damage but not crash an airliner and at best leave some small dents in aircraft skin but take down a smaller-scale drone. If you take your "reasons why not" logic too far, however, you end up asking "how do we take down an enemy jet" which, I m…
I think the important difference is in the case of a drone, you're dealing with the possibility that it's going to get sucked into a jet engine (which by multi-engine standards should still be "safe"). Therefore the solution can't be worse than the problem and firing off missiles (which may fail and not self destruct correctly) or guns is a bit of an over-reaction. In the case of a military SAM engagement, you go int…
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They arrested two people that they later admitted had nothing to do with the event in question. [1] What counterpoint are you making here? [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-sussex-46709353
What counterpoint am I making? I thought that it was perfectly obvious - that they had caught the previous person(s). I had not heard that they released them - I kind of quit paying attention once they made the arrests.
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Yes, CCTVs in busy streets, sometimes in shop entrances. Not in Random places in the middle of an airport.
In a world with terrorism, I promise you that every inch of that airport is covered with CCTV feeds monitored by probably armed security.
It's really not.
Just 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…
It might be better if people aren't told about the drone in the first place. Of course they will demand to know why their flights are delayed, but they might be better off if the hysteria is prevented while the authorities go look for the drone.
I kind of struggle to understand how there isn't enough equipment and electrical engineering expertise on site at a modern airport to pinpoint these drones really quickly - especially at Heathrow. Even a small drone surely makes a ton of radio noise just from its motors, no?
Yes, but not at well defined frequencies, and it's competing with every other laptop fan, vacuum cleaner, refrigerator, sliding door, and electric stove as a source of RF noise.