Ok so firstly I am so glad I am not on call this year or I could be at Gatwick!

The whole thing of shoting down a drone, has it been done before YES, how did they do it? About 15 blokes with AK47s effectively putting up a wall of lead and hoping for the best! That was in Mosul which well was a war zone when it happened not a busy international airport with lots of innocent people about.

Frangible rounds AKA hollow points, well they are made to break up on impact with the target so unless you hit the drone as above that takes a lot of guns and brass flying!

Bean bag rounds, well they are low velocity (shotgun) rounds with a limited range about 100ft and beyond that due to the ballistics even if you could get it to fly the 400 - 500ft these drones have been flying at the accuracy would make the chances of hitting the target a billion to one!

Now the fun one get a marksman / sniper to shoot it down err OK then it's not call of duty! Hit a fast moving erratic object, with turbulence from buildings and the varying wind speeds and directions at differing altitudes (above 250ft the wind can be totally different to ground level), now that is a hell of a shoot and I do mean something special!

Even with large calibre sniper rifles the ballistics will be heavily effected by these factors, and then you have the next issue even should a standard issue army sniper rifle round hit the drone it WILL go straight through it and continue on its flight so not you have a round with lots of power going anywhere towards anyone and anything!

The army are now there with specialist kit, what kit exactly I won't go into but they can track where the commands are coming from for the drone, and force the drone down, however the kit that can be used to take the drone(s) down well is just as dangerous to aircraft electronics (yes some of it is extremely powerful).

So while its a pain if I was a passenger I would rather they get it dealt with than risk it and see what happens!

Oh and to give you an idea the standard issue Army sniper rifle range danger area (so how far that round could actually fly for is, 4.5km or about 3 miles and for .50Cal is 5km so in excess of 4 miles) I know from planing and running ranges where we have been firing them!

Many thanks for all that insight @acko22 .

Just a little drone, but so, so difficult to deal with, and I for one am thankful that the situation is being handled by knowledgeable people who are not prepared to put the public at risk. It's an unprecedented and complex situation so of course we cannot expect an instant result. Thankfully no one is being any more than inconvenienced so far. I hope for a solution as soon as safely possible.

see from the news tonight the drone/s was /were back again this evening, though luckily for only a short period of time.

what is it with this / these scrotes ?

It is comparatively  easy to pick up a continuous signal using a spectrum analyzer with a yagi aerial.

However many of the functions of all drone can be autonomous and it's quite easy to add another small computer  with pre-programmed flight plans. There fore from the ground you could use just Bursts of communication when you wanted to change plan. This would make the tracking of the "commander" much more difficult.

This case aside,  every would be protestor or terrorist having seen the events will be going "that's an interesting idea.
Just think, half a pound of explosive put into a radio controlled model aircraft flown into an aircraft just fueled up would be able disaster almost impossible to stop.

Quote from: The Q on December 21, 2018, 11:56:45 PM
It is comparatively  easy to pick up a continuous signal using a spectrum analyzer with a yagi aerial.

However many of the functions of all drone can be autonomous and it's quite easy to add another small computer  with pre-programmed flight plans. There fore from the ground you could use just Bursts of communication when you wanted to change plan. This would make the tracking of the "commander" much more difficult.

This case aside,  every would be protestor or terrorist having seen the events will be going "that's an interesting idea.
Just think, half a pound of explosive put into a radio controlled model aircraft flown into an aircraft just fueled up would be able disaster almost impossible to stop.

I refer back to my knowledge of capabilities that the Army have without going into detail, you will be extremely surprised how easy it is for the specialist units to defeat such drones and also track radio signals even on burst mode. Again I know this from work and cannot / will not go into more detail than that.
The aim however is while you can defeat these drones so easily is to catch the person behind this and prevent them from sending them up. If you just destroy the machine the person behind it can just go and get another one.

The issues that there will currently be is tracking this person is actually 2 fold, firstly crowded airwaves making tracking harder but also our laws which means as a norm we cant use the full range of capabilities without the highest clearance and full safety factors taken into account due to the crowded airwaves in every modern country.

As for the potential terrorist threat, believe me they are already well aware and have used it to horrific effect in Iraq and Syria. There are massive issues to overcome and none of it is an easy fix there are hundreds of factors to take into account.

Maybe this should be in the Happy thread....

Success! Drone flyers have been apprehended!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-46657505

Apropos of what @acko22 mentioned here, that article includes the comment

Quotespokeswoman for the airport said military measures put in place at the airfield made it safe to reopen.

Hopefully they will throw the book at them!

Or just lead them into Gatwick Terminal and leave the public to take care of them with a nice cup of tea.

I think that there might be in the region of 350,000 people affected by this drone nonsense who might be only too happy to take the alleged miscreants off the authorities hands and 'teach them the error of their ways'...

...and just because they've arrested two suspects the police/military shouldn't think that they have them all and discontinue the search...

I'm sure there are a lot of heartfelt thanks going out to the army guys for sorting this out.

more importantly ALL airports should now be installing equipment to prevent a recurrence, either at Gatwick or elsewhere, as it is patently obvious that the police are unable to deal with this sort of situation.

the equipment is available, it just needs the bean counters to allocate some of their profits to what is obviously a future threat.

imagine the disruption if this had happened at Heathrow.

addition from BBCnews

"Police remain at the airport to "detect and mitigate" any further drone threats"

considering how ineffective they were for three days, I hope some squaddies are still there to do the work, while plod poses and no doubt the P&CC is working out how much extra she can screw from the council tax payers next year.

Quote from: class37025 on December 22, 2018, 11:50:30 AM
I'm sure there are a lot of heartfelt thanks going out to the army guys for sorting this out.

more importantly ALL airports should now be installing equipment to prevent a recurrence, either at Gatwick or elsewhere, as it is patently obvious that the police are unable to deal with this sort of situation.

the equipment is available, it just needs the bean counters to allocate some of their profits to what is obviously a future threat.

Sadly if it was only this easy, it was obviously a more advanced drone than your cheap £100 amazon special.
The army lads did what they needed to (again can not go into detail) but there are so many issues to over come to prevent this occurrence the default cannot be to call the army in every time!

To give you an idea (this is open knowledge) there are so many methods to operate these things just look around your home how much stuff uses radio signals of some type?
Then imagine how many times more different radio equipment at an airport using the full spectrum of radio signals its a nightmare! As i have previously said the Army do hold the kit to block these signals but you need to find out what signal it is first before you can deal with it other whys you have to block the lot and try and figure it out from there which just isn't an option as you will need to close the airport to deal with it.

I assume not only a more advanced drone, but also possibly someone who was able to bypass or overcome the software stopping drones flying near airports. [geofencing ?]

I was not suggesting that the default should be to call in the army each time, my premise was that the airport authorities should be looking to taking responsibility and at installing either systems, or the equipment for response, in the event of further incidents.

the police are obviously incapable of dealing with such incidents, so surely the responsibility lies with the airport operators.

unfortunately, since we've seen how much disruption can be caused, it will no doubt not be long before some other scrote / s decide to try it.

it was said on one of the reports that the systems exist, but cannot be legally used at this time, so perhaps the government should get off it's backside and change the necessary laws.

or are they too happy with the fact that this has taken over the news, with less reporting on the failures in Brexit.

Quote from: class37025 on December 22, 2018, 08:39:35 PM

I assume not only a more advanced drone, but also possibly someone who was able to bypass or overcome the software stopping drones flying near airports. [geofencing ?]

3 questions from that:

1) Does Gatwick indeed any UK airport have geo fencing set up? (Possible but honestly so far very unlikely - It falls more into the realms of the CAA to govern that)
2) Did this / any future drones that incur restricted airspace have the required GPS software to prevent them infringing on restricted airspace fitted. (I suspect for the most part nope)
3) Even if it becomes UK law to have GPS fitted to ensure on UK sold drones, there is nothing stopping a person(s) buying one from another country where it isn't law to have the required GPS and software fitted. (These issues of items not meeting UK guidelines are already an issue in alot of electronics bought online)

Quote from: class37025 on December 22, 2018, 08:39:35 PM
I was not suggesting that the default should be to call in the army each time, my premise was that the airport authorities should be looking to taking responsibility and at installing either systems, or the equipment for response, in the event of further incidents.

the police are obviously incapable of dealing with such incidents, so surely the responsibility lies with the airport operators.

it was said on one of the reports that the systems exist, but cannot be legally used at this time, so perhaps the government should get off it's backside and change the necessary laws.

This issue needs dealing with at all levels can't just the airports, police, government or military and here in lies the issue.

One of the issues been the kit the military have used to deal with this are secret and if we make it available for use it won't be long before people work out how it works and that not only allows them to get round the kit but in a military sense it makes that kit worthless as it won't take long for any foe to find out how to get round it. This has happened in the past with similar kit and cost both money but more importantly lives. So I am sure many of you can understand we are no willing to make this technology more accessible.

There are systems in use in the US to combat drones at a few airports, but they come with another world of issues (I can talk about this as it's not military). Their primary method of locating a drone is a very high powered radar due to the size and construction (plastic), when I say high powered I mean similar to what is used to long range tracking radar in the UK which are kept away from populous due to how powerful they are, which is already a drama as they do on their own act as a jamming platform to all other communications you would expect to see at a civilian airport.

Once this part has tracked a potential target it goes to what are in effect air defense turrets which visually track the target, part of this is the next issue to "range" any potential target they have laser range finders. This is the next issue they need military weapon grade lasers. While that tech isn't secret they are extremely powerful and dangerous so using them in such a populated area and such busy airspace opens up a can of worms! And this grade of laser is only authorized to be used by the military and under very strict circumstance in the UK.

Final bit when the turret has locked on is it fires on the target to bring it down with a capture net, great in theory and at the airports it is used at in America that's fine they are isolated locations. But here in the UK you can't have these things just dropping out of the sky anywhere.
I work off Manchester Airport for this example at the Eastern end of Runway one you have the railway line directly underneath with OHLE which you don't want it coming into contact with, houses just off the flight path, major roads. Its how to get around all that.

Adding power to radar  as in a long range radar which used have  projected powers of up to 30mega Watts  wouldn't help that much.  Long range radars only rotate at 4rpm and have a comparatively long wavelength.

What would be  needed is a fast rotating, short range, short wavelength radar. To pick small objects that can change direction  very rapidly..  A second scanner would be required  to lock on to an object being fed by the information from the first radar. .  This all starts getting expensive as you would  need at least one each end of a runway, plus crew to man it 24hours 364days.

Outside of the major airports this would be unsustainable.

Fitting gps  would only stop the  amateur,  GPS,  or any other devices fitted to drones or radio controlled aircraft can easily be defeated,  by enthusiastic protestors or terrorists..

The ultimate  drone / model aircraft  could be fitted with a computer control programme take off fly around for a bit, causing grief,  then fly off somewhere else, to be picked up.   Making it difficult to be there to catch the criminals. Or they may not be interested in collecting it and it may be crashed into an aircraft.

Aircraft tend to park at the same place at a terminal every time on schedule you don't need detection gear to find it to hit it..

What this case really needs is for any person(s) charged with an offence to be brought up before a 'Judge Jefferies'-type hang-'em-all judge who will give them the full sentence to act as a deterrent to future incidents. Unfortunately in this day and age, they will probably be given a slap on the wrist and advised not to do it again...

"One of the issues been the kit the military have used to deal with this are secret and if we make it available for use it won't be long before people work out how it works and that not only allows them to get round the kit but in a military sense it makes that kit worthless as it won't take long for any foe to find out how to get round it. This has happened in the past with similar kit and cost both money but more importantly lives. So I am sure many of you can understand we are no willing to make this technology more accessible."

I quite understand the implications you refer to, but according to so called experts on the news etc there is supposedly commercially available kit which could be used without the security implications.

surely something is better than nothing, even if you need to close the airport for a couple of hours to use the kit to neutralise the threat, that must be better than three days of disruption to hundreds of thousands of people.

if other countries can deal with these threats, why can't we ?

or is there simply not the bottle will in those responsible to actually take the necessary decisions ?

it appears the two people arrested for the drone offences have been 'released without charge' and are now 'no longer persons of interest'

so the scrote / s is / are still out there, and plod is no wiser.

ain't modern policing great.