Primarily for general aviation discussion, but other aviation topics are also welcome.
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By skydriller
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1663953
riverrock wrote:Drones have been in hundreds of Airproxes and a few collisions, its just that these are making headlines due to the disruption. They are small, hard to track down and easily hidden. There are also hundreds of potential targets.


We are talking night time near a brightly lit airport. These things really are not easy to see. It would be interesting to find out the numbers of drone airprox reports split night/day.

The Heathrow "drone sighting" with minimum disruption - believable.
The Gatwick incident over 2 nights & 2 days - more to it.

Regards, SD..
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By rikur_
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1663957
Would last night's Heathrow incident have been newsworthy if the Gatwick incident hadn't happened?

I believe we've had several drone sightings in the vicinity of Manchester's ILS that have caused short-term disruption and not been mainstream news.

LBA must have one of the most effective anti-drone set-ups .... 35kt cross winds to blow them away ;-)
Flyin'Dutch', flybymike liked this
#1663963
muffin wrote:I bet this situation would not continue for very long in N Korea or Russia for that matter.


A quick Google tells me there aren't too many drone retailers in North Korea. :whistle:

PS. I think the UK gave-up on summary execution a few years back. :shock:
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#1663969
riverrock wrote:Reports are that a BBC camera man who uses drones as part of his work (so is probably as much of an expert as there is) watched it for 4 to 5 minutes and some police officers also saw it, so better sightings of this one than the Gatwick mysterious one(s).

Feels like a copy cat.

The shot I saw on tv news showed what looked to me like a 'normal' aircraft showing strobes and red/green/white lights some distance away and probably about 10,000ft.
But then I'm only an ex controller with 34 years experience of looking at this sort of thing so who am I to say?
#1663994
chevvron wrote:
riverrock wrote:Reports are that a BBC camera man who uses drones as part of his work (so is probably as much of an expert as there is) watched it for 4 to 5 minutes and some police officers also saw it, so better sightings of this one than the Gatwick mysterious one(s).

Feels like a copy cat.

The shot I saw on tv news showed what looked to me like a 'normal' aircraft showing strobes and red/green/white lights some distance away and probably about 10,000ft.
But then I'm only an ex controller with 34 years experience of looking at this sort of thing so who am I to say?


Could a drone with nav lights and strobes at say 1/2 mile and 500ft look like a 'biggie' at 10,000ft?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ailEQgTL-g
#1664057
Do drones produce an infra red signature?
Can you get a range from an infra red return?
I once experimented with a pneumatic device that with a little more work could have become a machine gun using airgun pellets, range about 80-100 yards, muzzle energy 12lbf.
I’m convinced that if the target was identified and close enough it doesn’t need a military weapon with 50cal armour piercing rounds at 6000 rounds a minute being sprayed over London to knock a drone out of the sky.
The government should not be starting to think about this threat from now onwards, it should have been realised years ago.
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By Flyin'Dutch'
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1664061
@Dave Phillips

There is no doubt that military capability to deal with this sort of stuff is available.

The lack of deployment is either because the MOD does not want to show its hand or the beancounters have until now not wanted to purchase this.

I suspect the latter dressed up as the former.

At the moment it looks that the UK government's procurement procedures could do with some 'freshening up'

Maybe less money for Seabourne and more for anti drone capability?
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By Iceman
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1664064
Has any other country being subjected to this degree of disruption at one of its major airports, and if so, how did they counter the threat ?

Iceman 8)
#1664074
Crash one wrote:I’m convinced that if the target was identified and close enough it doesn’t need a military weapon with 50cal armour piercing rounds at 6000 rounds a minute being sprayed over London to knock a drone out of the sky.


Quite. If you can get close enough, then the weapon of choice is quite obviously a shotgun. It solves the collateral damage and aiming problems nicely. Range remains the issue, but longer barrels, bigger charge, etc. It can't be beyond the wit of man to produce a shotgun with twice the effective range of the common or garden variety.