The angry thread

[guest311]

but surely, such a "highly trained" marksman shouldn't be letting of bursts of bullets, but a single carefully aimed single shot.

if they are not going to shoot, why did we see so many of them, and their vehicles, just standing around.

possibly, beats doing their proper job of actually getting onto the streets and dealing with crime ?

I remember when I was sworn in, back in the 60's, my duties were defined as ' the prevention and detection of crime' nowadays there seems to be none of the first, and precious little of the second.

[The Q]

You are talking about a tiny moving target several hundred feet up in the sky, much of which is whirring blades though which you could fire and miss.
Even if you did hit it, it could come down on an aircraft or fuel tanker which if next to a building or full of passengers would cause many hundreds of deaths

[Calnefoxile]

2. the worst ever excuse from the police, "we couldn't shoot at it for the risk of stray bullets"
this from those who ponce around all day in a crowded airport [ie target rich environment] with automatic sub machine guns !

thought they were supposed to be highly trained marksmen.

What goes up must come down, live rounds fired at an airport whether or not they hit the target. if they come down and hit an aircraft would cause a catastrophic damage, especially to fully fuelled aircraft.
In the past when rounds fired at a target range have missed people have been killed several miles away.

During WW2 much damage was caused by rounds returning to the ground that had missed their target. (and probably deaths)

Absolutely, although not used these days the old 7.62mm/.303 weapons had an effective range of 1.5 miles, although an actual range of a lot more. The 5.56mm weapons used today still have a range in excess of 1.5 miles or approx. 3 km in new money.

Cheers & Merry Xmas

Neal.

[guest311]

so presumably, no consideration of frangible rounds, or even 'bean bags' as we used to call them.

so again, if you arn't going to shoot, why so many armed officers standing around doing nothing ?

supposed it got some TV coverage, but nothing to actually deal with the problem, or help in any way the thousands of stranded passengers.

saw 900 was there, but presumably they couldn't drop a cargo net on the drone, no probably too difficult and might damage the grass when it hit the ground.

[daffy]

Photon torpedoes or simple Phasers would sort em out.

Oh yes, and you could aim them at the drones too.

[dannyboy]

Photon torpedoes or simple Phasers would sort em out.

Oh yes, and you could aim them at the drones too.

Take the drone out and you leave the operator free to launch another. Take the operator out ............  (Where's the SAS when you need them?). 

[The Q]

You can guarentee they are there in the background somewhere...

[TrevL]

You can guarentee they are there in the background somewhere...

If they weren't, they are now.

[Lawrence]

Armed officers in airports, towns and cities are trained firearms officers, which is an awfully long way from being a marksman and frangible rounds would be totally ineffective against a such an object moving at speed several hundred feet in the air, not quite the same as shooting at some protester with a soft center 50 yards away.

And trying to track the transmission signal in an area with already congested airwaves would be a nightmare.

Until a safe and effective solution is found, not dissimilar to the American system which I am sure they will sell to us for vast sums, stopping air traffic is the only 100% safe solution.

Whilst it may be considered that the lead officer was a little slow to react to the situation in terms of bringing in expert outside assistance, they made the absolute correct decision to shut the place down until safe.

If I was on one of the aircraft taking off when a drone went into the engine air intake causing it to disintegrate, the aircraft to lose 50% of its thrust at a critical time resulting in it crashing into a small nearby village causing hundreds of deaths, I wouldn't be happy 

[zwilnik]

so presumably, no consideration of frangible rounds, or even 'bean bags' as we used to call them.

so again, if you arn't going to shoot, why so many armed officers standing around doing nothing ?

supposed it got some TV coverage, but nothing to actually deal with the problem, or help in any way the thousands of stranded passengers.

saw 900 was there, but presumably they couldn't drop a cargo net on the drone, no probably too difficult and might damage the grass when it hit the ground.

The problem is range. The drone operator can probably see anybody coming within low velocity round range from a mile off (literally), so they carry on hiding then popping up somewhere else when the coast is clear. The Airport perimeter is huge, so a scumbag with a drone and a car can pop up all over the place through the day.
The electronic 'return to base' type zappers rely on the drone running its standard operating system. If it's been modified specifically to cause trouble (which it sounds like it has) then you'd probably need to be doing flat out full spectrum radio jamming, in which case if you're lucky it would stay in the same place long enough to be shot down, but is more likely to have a "run to waypoint" functionality that drops it somewhere away from both the police and the operator for the operator to recover if the coast is clear. Also, for that sort of radio jamming, it's pretty short range again unless you want to disrupt *everything* for a long way around.

[daffy]

Although Police say today they have "persons of interest" identified, latest news reports suggest a drone has again been sighted:

From BBC News feed online:

"Flights at Gatwick have been suspended again due to a new "suspected drone sighting".
A spokeswoman for the airport said: "We are just hearing a report of another drone sighting that we are investigating.
"As we look into it we have taken the precaution of suspending flights."
Aircraft have been circling above the airport as they are currently unable to land. Details are still coming in on the "suspected rogue drone".
The sighting reportedly occurred at about 17:10 GMT.
The Ministry of Defence has not confirmed the sighting but Sussex Police said its officers were investigating."

Hope they  the culprit(s) when they catch them.

[guest311]

so now it is confirmed

we are the laughing stock of europe, if not the world, because we can't even deal with a drone.

isn't it great to be british

[dannyboy]

On the 11th December I ordered an item over the net, (part of Louisa's Christmas present, so can't name the company in case she looks over my shoulder). Unbeknown to me, the item was coming from Switzerland, but it arrived in Ireland, via Germany and the UK, on the 13th - two days! So, as you do, I followed the parcels route via the website of the Courier company, (okay, it was 'GLS', which is a subsidiary of 'Royal Mail' apparently). On the 14th, there is an entry which states that there was a problem with my address. I had quoted my Eircode, (similar to Postcode in the UK, but each individual address in Ireland has a unique code), so there should be no problem.  On the 17th, I used the 'GLS' contact form to ask what they were doing and why did they not use the Eircode finder on the internet? I am still waiting on a reply from 'GLS'. So yesterday, I sent an email to the sending company, letting them know of the problem. Just before 4pm today I received a reply stating that they had been in contact with 'GLS' and the parcel would be with me before 6pm. I went to pick Louisa up from work and we arrived home, just before 5pm, the parcel was waiting for me! I do not know what the sending company said to 'GLS', but it worked.  . So actually I am happy, but what makes me  is a) 'GLS' have not had the courtesy to acknowledge my email and b) I had to get the sender involved. 'GLS' stands for 'Global Logistics Systems' - I know what it should stand for - 'Great Load of  '. Okay, rant over. 

[guest311]

 

I sent four parcels to Tenerife via parcel farce, checked the tracking and it said

parcel 1 delivered on wednesday
parcel 2 delivered friday,
parcel 3 attempted delivery friday, returned to depot
parcel 4 'now in delivery country'

however, the recipient said all four parcels arrived together on the same day.

[guest311]

 Sussex Police said its officers were investigating.

don't hold your breath