Gatwick Airport (UK) suspends flights due to Drone activity

[Vimana]

Not a fan of the Sun to put it mildly, but the Grinch article is the first time I've seen a map of where the sightings and activities took place - including a helicopter chase at the end! It was rather cat & mouse - or spun for effect...?

 

[SpinItUp]

Rinse and repeat

 

[Vimana]

This person(s) is nuts! Can't believe it's back.
Amazingly, my colleague at work got away on her flight this morning. The difference a few hours makes...

 

[Luke Hall]

 

[Tbredhed]

I have a hard time believing snipers would ever be used, even the smallest calibre rifle would pass clean through any drone and would still be able to cause severe injury/death if it was to hit a person.
There are ceramic bullets that are meant to shatter upon impact with any object but in the case of a clean miss same result as above.

 

[FoxhallGH]

Looking at some of the latest photo's - I'm not familiar with the drone design. This one appears to have a central 'brick' fuselage that presents the smallest sides to the front and back, with 4 arms, and with green and red lights on each arm. Based on an assumption that the 'brick' flies with its smallest sides to the front and back, then this seems to show that the drone has port & starboard style lighting, rather than the red-to-the-front and green-to-the rear I'm used to seeing on my Mavic Pro ...

... oh - and all you folks who aren't prepared to see the actual photos of the Gatwick drones - please look away now!

 

[FoxhallGH]

Seven people were killed, when a Renault van drove into pedestrians on London Bridge on the 3rd June 2017. Its one of many incidents where terrorists have used vehicles to kill innocent people in many countries over the last couple of years. When your friends and neighbours give you a hard time about 'your mates flying the drones' (and they will!) and how they should be banned from this place, and regulated by that law - just remind them that there was not a single headline in any newspaper, or on any TV News ribbon, that stated that a) motor-vehicles of any types should be banned, and b) motor vehicles should be prevented from entering any areas - after any of the atrocities carried out by terrorists driving and using vehicles deliberately to kill and injure innocent civilian pedestrians after those events.

CEP [Counter Extremism Project] has documented at least 38 vehicular terrorist attacks since 2006, collectively resulting in the deaths of at least 197 people and the injury of at least 1,056 others. ... Vehicles as Weapons of Terror

I'm not condoning the actions of the Gatwick Droners - but there will be a back-lash against all drone operators, and we need to be prepared for it ... The authorities are 'mature' enough to realise that you can't prevent the problem by banning drones - just like you can't stop terrorism by banning cars - But somehow, and really soon - we need to be prepared to 'educate' the public and not just 'head-in-the-sand' say "It's not my fault!". Politicians don't look for the correct way to sort a problem, they look for the easy way ... and in this case, the easy way may be to go for an outright ban! We need to be ready to lobby against that ...

 

[Asgard]

Would appreciate a source for that photo, Fox

 

[FoxhallGH]

Would appreciate a source for that photo, Fox

Of course - took it out of this page ... Gatwick drone chaos continues into a third day

 

[Asgard]

Hmm, no indication of source there, quite likely a stock image

 

[badgenes]

Not going to read any more replies, I want to keep the mental image that I've built of many users here so forgive me if I have (hopefully) echoed another.

The news being slung about this incident may very well be more accurate than I believe, and by extension those who believe most if not all of what the "news" delivers in the way of coverage for high profile incidents (typically in the form of repetitive short intense streams of information often vague and attributed to Anonymous Sources). I obviously do not buy most of the story and would ask that now that I have rather inexpertly delivered my opening statements in an inflammatory manner to take a brief moment to apply critical thinking to this situation and the coverage to date. Of note: battery life and its implication on loiter time over the target area, considering only the use of Mark I eyeballs and radios the remarkable ability for said operators to remain hidden given maximum operating distance from the target in such an RF and foliage crowded environment, motor lifetime when utilized for such extended periods, remarkable QC demonstrated by the lack of any failure on the part of the "culprits" gear, the failure of all proven commercial anti-drone products brought to bear by local authorities, and finally assuming a significantly eye-sight challenged group of law enforcement involved the inability to locate anyone using gear designed for the purpose. I would direct you to the recent "study" conducted in the U.S. near Embry-Riddle in Florida utilizing this technology to obtain make, model, serial, operator location etc.

Perhaps there are reasonable explanations for each of the (major) inconsistencies demonstrated in the incident as reported. I certainly do not have a reasonable alternative explanation, rather by applying logic and (estimated) probabilities to the troublesome circumstances / facts it is apparent to me that the "news" does not either.

badgenes

 

[FoxhallGH]

Hmm, no indication of source there, quite likely a stock image

OK - The Telegraph is one of the biggest news-desks in the UK. They have been using stock images as headers in earlier articles about airport security (DJI Inspire against background 747), but you have to admit, that this is a pretty c**p stock image if that's all they wanted here ...
Yesterday everyone was being critical because the press and spotters weren't out getting snaps of these drones in the dark. Now they are and they aren't believed ...
If you choose to think that in the current UK climate, there is some conspiracy to 'engineer' some incident to keep 100,000 people camping on Gatwick terminal floors - then I really don't think that you have a full understanding of the political situation in the UK at them moment. This is literally the last thing that ANYBODY would want to happen.

 

[Johnmcl7]

Looking at some of the latest photo's - I'm not familiar with the drone design. This one appears to have a central 'brick' fuselage that presents the smallest sides to the front and back, with 4 arms, and with green and red lights on each arm. Based on an assumption that the 'brick' flies with its smallest sides to the front and back, then this seems to show that the drone has port & starboard style lighting, rather than the red-to-the-front and green-to-the rear I'm used to seeing on my Mavic Pro ...
View attachment 56460
... oh - and all you folks who aren't prepared to see the actual photos of the Gatwick drones - please look away now!

I'm not sure why you think people aren't prepared to see actual photos, my point was that the fact there's been an almost total lack of photos in an area with a huge amount of people and massive media attention is pretty much unheard of. These days with any major event there's usually a flood of very poor quality photos that gradually gets better in time as photographers with better cameras come along.

I also note that's three different sets of drones we've had now, the first pair were the heavy duty industrialised drones, the second one was a small consumer type quadcopter without any lights and now the third one appears to be a different design again.

 

[Asgard]

Fox, You are reading stuff into my post that is not there

 

[FoxhallGH]

Not going to read any more replies, I want to keep the mental image that I've built of many users here so forgive me if I have (hopefully) echoed another.

The news being slung about this incident may very well be more accurate than I believe, and by extension those who believe most if not all of what the "news" delivers in the way of coverage for high profile incidents (typically in the form of repetitive short intense streams of information often vague and attributed to Anonymous Sources). I obviously do not buy most of the story and would ask that now that I have rather inexpertly delivered my opening statements in an inflammatory manner to take a brief moment to apply critical thinking to this situation and the coverage to date. Of note: battery life and its implication on loiter time over the target area, considering only the use of Mark I eyeballs and radios the remarkable ability for said operators to remain hidden given maximum operating distance from the target in such an RF and foliage crowded environment, motor lifetime when utilized for such extended periods, remarkable QC demonstrated by the lack of any failure on the part of the "culprits" gear, the failure of all proven commercial anti-drone products brought to bear by local authorities, and finally assuming a significantly eye-sight challenged group of law enforcement involved the inability to locate anyone using gear designed for the purpose. I would direct you to the recent "study" conducted in the U.S. near Embry-Riddle in Florida utilizing this technology to obtain make, model, serial, operator location etc.

Perhaps there are reasonable explanations for each of the (major) inconsistencies demonstrated in the incident as reported. I certainly do not have a reasonable alternative explanation, rather by applying logic and (estimated) probabilities to the troublesome circumstances / facts it is apparent to me that the "news" does not either.

badgenes

Hey - Launch an RPG and run why don't you ...
Got to pull you up on Embry-Riddle I'm afraid ... Even that report states categorically, that the equipment used to do the study was ONLY capable of tracking DJI drones (go back and read it). It's apparent that in this case the drones are most probably NOT DJI (as we have seen photo's of Aeroscope being used at Gatwick) - and therefore, the authorities don't have a tracking mechanism ... The other thing that is significant is that the total disruption time is nowhere near the loiter time of the drones being used. It is even highly likely that the perp's are listening to local reports regarding the opening of the airport, and using those as flags to launch another flight. The drone only has to appear over the airport for a few minutes to cause hours of disruption. These people WILL be caught, and they will be dealt with quite severley (and I don't think there will be much sympathy for them from any quarter).

 

[FoxhallGH]

Fox, You are reading stuff into my post that is not there, chill matey

Sorry bud - not getting at you - but just sitting down at breakfast this morning and hearing people talk about this ... The last thing I wanted to do was put my hand up and say I flew Drones! Not a place I want to be ...

 

[FoxhallGH]

I'm not sure why you think people aren't prepared to see actual photos, my point was that the fact there's been an almost total lack of photos in an area with a huge amount of people and massive media attention is pretty much unheard of. These days with any major event there's usually a flood of very poor quality photos that gradually gets better in time as photographers with better cameras come along.

I also note that's three different sets of drones we've had now, the first pair were the heavy duty industrialised drones, the second one was a small consumer type quadcopter without any lights and now the third one appears to be a different design again.

Sorry Mate - just seems to have been a lot of "I haven't seen any photo's so it can't be true' type comments going around. If there is an incident like this in the UK, then the Police get everybody out of the way, so it's no real mystery why there aren't a lot of vid's covering the actual Drones, and the ones that are, are long-distance spots in the sky.

 

[JDawg]

"The other thing that is significant is that the total disruption time is nowhere near the loiter time of the drones being used. It is even highly likely that the perp's are listening to local reports regarding the opening of the airport, and using those as flags to launch another flight. The drone only has to appear over the airport for a few minutes to cause hours of disruption. "

Spot on

 

[ataraxia]

Ok I see we've now come to the end where we're now all presuming this is fake news because we're not being shown the evidence we require. I hate modern society.

 

[Vimana]

Got to pull you up on Embry-Riddle I'm afraid ... Even that report states categorically, that the equipment used to do the study was ONLY capable of tracking DJI drones (go back and read it). It's apparent that in this case the drones are most probably NOT DJI (as we have seen photo's of Aeroscope being used at Gatwick)

Would this be the study you are both referring to, please?:
Embry-Riddle Study Confirms Small Unmanned “Drones” Pose Increasing Risks to Aircraft - sUAS News - The Business of Drones

As a newbie, I'm trying to keep up with the discussion here...