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Mysterious drones have been spotted at airports across Europe

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Mysterious drones have been spotted at airports across Europe

#61

Post by Cthulhu_ »

FinnKuhn wrote: post #38
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why I don't understand why there isn't a more aggressive response to flying drones illegally near airports. IMO they should just be shot down. Actually some years they were very proudly showing birds of prey that they had trained to do just that. Whatever happened to that? After 9/11 there was a huge worldwide shift in e.g. airplane security due to the threat of terrorism, but now there's drones out there they…

How do you expect to shoot them down? They are small and very quick and disappear shortly after appearing.

If they're detectable they can be targeted; counter-drones for sure (which are also very fast), and there's automated rifle targeting systems specifically designed to target and shoot down drones (e.g. https://www.smart-shooter.com/). I'm confident that a system of automated turrets on and around an airbase could be set up. If shooting a gun near civilians is an issue, these don't even need to shoot bullets.

But of course, electronic countermeasures / jamming should be attempted first, so they can be recovered intact and traced.

Re: Mysterious drones have been spotted at airports across Europe

#62

Post by Cthulhu_ »

mastax wrote: post #53

Have they been conclusively spotted? With evidence? Sorry I only skimmed the article. Until there is, I’m going to keep believing it’s some sort of mass delusion like UFO sightings. Not because I think some sort of drone attack is particularly unlikely, but because these sorts of mass delusions are evidently very common - like happened in New Jersey.

Don't they show up on radar? I have no reason to doubt the detection of drones around airports and other infrastructure, especially given they already have enforced drone bans and therefore have installations specifically designed to detect and track drones.

Re: Mysterious drones have been spotted at airports across Europe

#63

Post by FinnKuhn »

infecto wrote: post #50
FinnKuhn wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you expect to shoot them down? They are small and very quick and disappear shortly after appearing.

Jammers work pretty well. I would expect most large airports would have a defense response. They would have the tools setup to one instantly identify and track said drones come within the space and two have the tools like the portable jammers to “shoot” it down. These tools are not that expensive and exist from multiple vendors. I would have expected this to be table stakes at running large busy airports.

How quickly can you deploy a portable jammer? The drone might have disappeared until you have done so already. So you definitelly need automated systems for detection and targetting, which will probably take time until they are widely available.

Re: Mysterious drones have been spotted at airports across Europe

#64

Post by Cthulhu_ »

sigwinch wrote: post #60
mosst wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have heard about this happening in Russia but not the other way around. Can you please elaborate?

As of October, Russian efforts via Telegram are associated with the seemingly-spontaneous swarms around places like The Hague. https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/the-cyberespionage-gig-...

It makes sense. In the Netherlands, young people (<18) have been recruited for all kinds of stuff by organized crime; bank account money muling as part of laundering operations, laying bombs, getting drugs / other smuggled stuff out of shipping containers in ports, that kind of thing. They target these because for them, a few hundred € is a huge sum, and the legal system is very forgiving to underage people, assuming they even get caught.

Re: Mysterious drones have been spotted at airports across Europe

#65

Post by sigwinch »

mosst wrote: post #56
sigwinch wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I heard it’s a mix. Suggestible local people on Telegram are coaxed to launch civilian stuff at a time and place. This clouds the sensor data of the true launches. I don’t know if we’ve seen Shahads since 10 September, but note that Shahads can be ship-launched as well.

So this is happening in the EU? I only heard about such cases happening in Russia. Where did you read about this?

It’s well documented, Latvia, Poland, and it takes time to build the case so there are probably more.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2025/may/04...

https://meduza.io/en/feature/2025/01/16/we-need-eyes-and-ear...

Re: Mysterious drones have been spotted at airports across Europe

#66

Post by FinnKuhn »

jiehong wrote: post #48
FinnKuhn wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you expect to shoot them down? They are small and very quick and disappear shortly after appearing.

Stand-by drone-intercepting drones? Tracking them is a need first and foremost. How about a down-facing radar on top of the Aviation Control Tower?

I think the issue is response time.

Once a drone has been spotted notifying the correct person and getting the drone started would take a few minutes I assume.

Furthermore you can't really deploy a drone at an airport while it is still active, which is the reason they are banned from operating there in the first place.

Re: Mysterious drones have been spotted at airports across Europe

#67

Post by Cthulhu_ »

billy99k wrote: post #6
Yokolos wrote: post #2

If we see a war between Russia and the EU, we're going to have to deal with them learning from Israel and using the same idea of decentralised drone hubs attacking military and civilian targets across the entire continent. We're woefully underprepared to deal with something like this. Western Europe still thinks that if a war breaks out, it'll be tanks and soldiers going into the Baltic states, and we'll crush them w…

Do you really think after years of crushing defeats in battle and sanctions, that they have the money or soldiers to fight the EU? If they did, they would have taken over Ukraine by now. Now if China gets involved? It's a different story.

If China gets involved directly (e.g. not through supplies) then the conflict will escalate; no party wants to escalate this, and for years now this has been a tight-rope proxy war of sorts, where Europe and the US try to support Ukraine as much as possible without being directly involved. Likewise, Russia has been getting supplies and people from their allies.

Re: Mysterious drones have been spotted at airports across Europe

#68

Post by Cthulhu_ »

pdabbadabba wrote: post #30
gambiting wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read what top generals in various countries in the EU are saying(especially on the East side), their main concern is that Russia is making thousands of brand new tanks, cannons, support vehicles......and they are all going into storage. Very few are actually getting sent to Ukraine. If these guys are saying that large scale conflict with Russia seems almost inevitable within few years.....what qualifications d…

I’ve never heard anyone say this. Source?

I'm also curious, why would Russia continue to send thousands to their deaths while holding back supplies and stuff? Unless it's intentional to appear weaker than they are.

But I don't see how that would work, unless the US is intentionally witholding intel from their allies - the US, since the invention of spaceflight, has had spy sattelites trained at Russia and they would see large accumulations and transports of tanks and tank parts.

Re: Mysterious drones have been spotted at airports across Europe

#69

Post by FinnKuhn »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #61
FinnKuhn wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you expect to shoot them down? They are small and very quick and disappear shortly after appearing.

If they're detectable they can be targeted; counter-drones for sure (which are also very fast), and there's automated rifle targeting systems specifically designed to target and shoot down drones (e.g. https://www.smart-shooter.com/ ). I'm confident that a system of automated turrets on and around an airbase could be set up. If shooting a gun near civilians is an issue, these don't even need to shoot bullets. But of…

I think the issue is that you can't really use counter-drones or automatic weapon systems at an airport due to the threat they pose to the airports operations (automatic rifle systems at civilian airports, which are the ones targeted, wouldn't fly in Germany).

The same is true for jamming, which sounds like a bad idea at an active airport, although targetted jamming will probably work. Not sure how quickly such a system can be deployed however.

So that means you need to wait until operations have paused at which point the drone has already disappeared.

I fell like tracking the drone to identify the operator with strong zoom cameras mounted on the airport might work though. At least some commercial systems seem to use this approach: https://www.dedrone.com/industry/airports

Re: Mysterious drones have been spotted at airports across Europe

#70

Post by Cthulhu_ »

thatgerhard wrote: post #19

[flagged]

If you make a bold claim like that I hope you have the sources to back it up. News outlets spreading misinformation is a criminal act; it was in the UK's 2003 Communications Act [0] and has been updated in the 2023 Online Safety Act [1], with some people already having been convicted [2] for spreading misinformation.

[0] https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/21/section/127

[1] https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/50/section/179

[2] https://www.derbyshire.police.uk/news/derbyshire/news/news/s...

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