Drones over Gatwick

[Mighty Ruler]

What about that cyclist, I haven’t heard owt more about that. I always thought he was the more likely suspect.

[TIGHTCHOKE]

2 minutes ago, Mighty Ruler said:

What about that cyclist, I haven’t heard owt more about that. I always thought he was the more likely suspect.

Ye'h, bloody cyclists!

[walshie]

The real culprit is still out there and ready to do it again whenever he fancies, safe in the knowledge the police don't have a clue.

[Hamster]

I still think a military grade contraption with 6 barrels firing suitably light rimfire ammo would take care of any drone that was flown low enough to be spotted in the first place and the falling bullets won't kill anyone neiver : 

I'd be happy to accept the suggestion is absurd/laughable/flawed by someone who knows enough on the subject rather than mere assumptions. 

[Mighty Ruler]

26 minutes ago, walshie said:

The real culprit is still out there and ready to do it again whenever he fancies, safe in the knowledge the police don't have a clue.

Yes, he’s out there but I’m not sure he could do it again, at least not at Gatwick. Something must have happened to stop him, a jamming device or something, don’t know why this wasn’t tried straight away. 

[grrclark]

5 minutes ago, Hamster said:

I still think a military grade contraption with 6 barrels firing suitably light rimfire ammo would take care of any drone that was flown low enough to be spotted in the first place and the falling bullets won't kill anyone neiver : 

I'd be happy to accept the suggestion is absurd/laughable/flawed by someone who knows enough on the subject rather than mere assumptions. 

And where would you position that contraption, what would be the lowest angle of fire that you would permit it to have and what arc of fire would be permitted, what would be the necessary fall out range for the 100 rounds per second as the gun turret follows the flight of the drone before the bullets are no longer considered a hazard for severe injury/death to individuals or of course the possibility lots of little lead pills that might find their way into air intakes, etc in aircraft.  Would the contraption be autonomous so it can nail the drone just as soon as it detects it, whilst full airfield operations are underway or would they still have to shut the airfield first before engaging?  On a typical airfield where would you place these guns to allow for full coverage to stop disruption to flights? 

Where would you place these contraptions on the various flight paths coming into each end of the runway(s), considering that the larger commercial type drones can fly at up to 8000ft high, gonna need to be a pretty chunky bullet to have the required retained energy to do sufficient damage to bring down a drone at that height.  

Just some very straightforward questions without being at all knowledgeable about the subject, but just actually thinking.

Sadly I cannot attribute the quote, but it is referenced in the Sunday Times today that a UK government spokesman gave an example of another country firing off 6000 rounds at a drone over an airfield and it escaped unscathed.

Just for fun here is a Google image of Gatwick and it's surroundings, I have added a measurement line for scale that is 2 miles long.  What is the effective range of a .22 or even a .17HMR round, lets assume to kill a drone that it needs as much retained energy to kill a rabbit.  For those chaps with the ballistics calculators how many gun positions would be required to give meaningful coverage of the runways and aprons and other parts of the airfield where a drone would be disruptive, but without being so close as to fire 100 rounds per second into areas where people are that could cause injury or harm or of course over the airport perimeter fence into the neighbouring residential areas, roads, etc?

 

 

[ordnance]

1 hour ago, grrclark said:

Pretty much sums up for me what the outcome of more legislation would achieve.

There are already laws in place that make the activity at Gatwick illegal, breaking more laws doesn’t really make a difference.

Same as with firearm crime, some of our most stringently enforced laws are all about not shooting people and they carry much greater consequence than owning a gun illegaly, yet folk still do shoot people.  Amazing that the tougher firearms law didn’t stop that really 🤔

This crazy public clamour for even more legislation, that is mostly un-policeable and unenforceable, when things happen is insidious and dangerous.  We cannot and should not allow exceptional incidents by the tinniest minority have a day to day legislative impact on the overwhelming majority of people who do follow the rules.

+ 1

[Hamster]

2 minutes ago, grrclark said:

And where would you position that contraption, what would be the lowest angle of fire that you would permit it to have and what arc of fire would be permitted, what would be the necessary fall out range for the 100 rounds per second as the gun turret follows the flight of the drone before the bullets are no longer considered a hazard for severe injury/death to individuals or of course the possibility lots of little lead pills that might find their way into air intakes, etc in aircraft.  Would the contraption be autonomous so it can nail the drone just as soon as it detects it, whilst full airfield operations are underway or would they still have to shut the airfield first before engaging?  On a typical airfield where would you place these guns to allow for full coverage to stop disruption to flights? 

Where would you place these contraptions on the various flight paths coming into each end of the runway(s), considering that the larger commercial type drones can fly at up to 8000ft high, gonna need to be a pretty chunky bullet to have the required retained energy to do sufficient damage to bring down a drone at that height.  

Just some very straightforward questions without being at all knowledgeable about the subject, but just actually thinking.

Sadly I cannot attribute the quote, but it is referenced in the Sunday Times today that a UK government spokesman gave an example of another country firing off 6000 rounds at a drone over an airfield and it escaped unscathed.

Just for fun here is a Google image of Gatwick and it's surroundings, I have added a measurement line for scale that is 2 miles long.  What is the effective range of a .22 or even a .17HMR round, lets assume to kill a drone that it needs as much retained energy to kill a rabbit.  For those chaps with the ballistics calculators how many gun positions would be required to give meaningful coverage of the runways and aprons and other parts of the airfield where a drone would be disruptive, but without being so close as to fire 100 rounds per second into areas where people are that could cause injury or harm or of course over the airport perimeter fence into the neighbouring residential areas, roads, etc?

 

 

 

You would need many dozens such guns placed in whatever locations the experts deem suitable, I'm not privy to whether full autonomous mode is possible but regardless even if they had to be manned it would take mere minutes to do so once the hazard was spotted (it would seem they had to have had some kind of pre-warning in this case ?).

I believe it must be possible to design and spec bullets which are heavy enough to go as far as the eye can see and be lethal to a drone whilst having an acceptably low risk of damage to cars or indeed aircraft upon their return to earth. I simply don't believe their finding their way into engines and stuff  😏  is a serious consideration or risk. 

If the rounds are designed to be non lethal once spent then the arc of fire etc, is a non issue. Remember the alternative of just watching them sail on is simply not an option. 

[Vince Green]

1 hour ago, TIGHTCHOKE said:

And whichever Police Officer sanctioned the release of their names!

The police don't have to sanction the release of their names, once they start searching the house the neighbours will be queuing up to tell the papers

[ordnance]

3 minutes ago, Hamster said:

You would need many dozens such guns placed in whatever locations the experts deem suitable, I'm not privy to whether full autonomous mode is possible but regardless even if they had to be manned it would take mere minutes to do so once the hazard was spotted (it would seem they had to have had some kind of pre-warning in this case ?).

I believe it must be possible to design and spec bullets which are heavy enough to go as far as the eye can see and be lethal to a drone whilst having an acceptably low risk of damage to cars or indeed aircraft upon their return to earth. I simply don't believe their finding their way into engines and stuff  😏  is a serious consideration or risk. 

If the rounds are designed to be non lethal once spent then the arc of fire etc, is a non issue. Remember the alternative of just watching them sail on is simply not an option. 

Or they could use technology already being tested in other countries.  This comes at a cost money UK airports obviously did not want to spend, i would say after the incident as we type they will be scrambling to test and install this technology, they were caught with their trousers down this time. But if people are determined to fly a drone near a airport, they might be able to lessen the disruption but not stop it.  Forget shooting things down, that's not going to happen for all sorts of reasons. 

[grrclark]

8 minutes ago, Hamster said:

You would need many dozens such guns placed in whatever locations the experts deem suitable, I'm not privy to whether full autonomous mode is possible but regardless even if they had to be manned it would take mere minutes to do so once the hazard was spotted (it would seem they had to have had some kind of pre-warning in this case ?).

I believe it must be possible to design and spec bullets which are heavy enough to go as far as the eye can see and be lethal to a drone whilst having an acceptably low risk of damage to cars or indeed aircraft upon their return to earth. I simply don't believe their finding their way into engines and stuff  😏  is a serious consideration or risk. 

If the rounds are designed to be non lethal once spent then the arc of fire etc, is a non issue. Remember the alternative of just watching them sail on is simply not an option. 

Just for fun, as i'm obviously in a pedantic mood today, I have attached a picture of Heathrow.  Each circle is approx 150m in diameter and the orange lines are approx 600m from the circles.  Assuming that a 150m kill zone is reasonable of a light projectile against a drone (i don't have a ballistics calculator to do the sums, but it is not unreasonable I think to suggest that a 600m fall out zone is probably the minimum required without doing damage to anything the bullet might hit in that area.

Covering both runways only at Heathrow, using my ultra noddy diagram below, would require 42 gun turrets and pretty much anything within the 2 runways is getting hurt/damaged by the fallout.

The upside would be our defence industry would love it as would the ammo industry, yay for Big Defence  

 

[Hamster]

12 minutes ago, ordnance said:

Or they could use technology already being tested in other countries.  This comes at a cost money UK airports obviously did not want to spend, i would say after the incident as we type they will be scrambling to test and install this technology, they were caught with their trousers down this time. But if people are determined to fly a drone near a airport, they might be able to lessen the disruption but not stop it.  Forget shooting things down, that's not going to happen for all sorts of reasons. 

Yes it is surprising that radar scrambling types of defence weren't already in place, makes you think how safe aircraft carriers are against incoming hypersonic missiles that have their own anti scramble defences built in. If you can't defend against over the counter drones forget shooting down a hundred missiles with or without Phalanx. 

Edited December 23, 2018 by Hamster

[panoma1]

1 hour ago, Newbie to this said:

The two people arrested, have been released without charge.

I'm afraid I saw this coming! Arresting innocent people deflects critism off the police's failure to find the real culprit/s!.......They will most probably catch them, only if someone grasses them up or they trip over them inflagranti Delecto!

[old man]

2 hours ago, grrclark said:

Pretty much sums up for me what the outcome of more legislation would achieve.

There are already laws in place that make the activity at Gatwick illegal, breaking more laws doesn’t really make a difference.

Same as with firearm crime, some of our most stringently enforced laws are all about not shooting people and they carry much greater consequence than owning a gun illegaly, yet folk still do shoot people.  Amazing that the tougher firearms law didn’t stop that really 🤔

This crazy public clamour for even more legislation, that is mostly un-policeable and unenforceable, when things happen is insidious and dangerous.  We cannot and should not allow exceptional incidents by the tinniest minority have a day to day legislative impact on the overwhelming majority of people who do follow the rules.

Sadly, you are asking for the application of too much common sense. As with all things legal, the imposed law only applies to the abiding. This appears to be one stage beyond the comprehension of the legislators.

[Hamster]

3 minutes ago, grrclark said:

Just for fun, as i'm obviously in a pedantic mood today, I have attached a picture of Heathrow.  Each circle is approx 150m in diameter and the orange lines are approx 600m from the circles.  Assuming that a 150m kill zone is reasonable of a light projectile against a drone (i don't have a ballistics calculator to do the sums, but it is not unreasonable I think to suggest that a 600m fall out zone is probably the minimum required without doing damage to anything the bullet might hit in that area.

Covering both runways only at Heathrow, using my ultra noddy diagram below, would require 42 gun turrets and pretty much anything within the 2 runways is getting hurt/damaged by the fallout.

The upside would be our defence industry would love it as would the ammo industry, yay for Big Defence  

 

 

My, you are in a pedantic mood today 😜  as you keep mentioning damage by bullet fall out, there will be no damage, not with suitably light rimmie ammo, if and when some of these land on cars or roof tops or indeed if one hits someone in the backside, nothing will happen, just a painful red mark and a £50 dent, worth the risk in other words.

ps. even 100 RimRipShredder guns per runway is a small price to pay, unlike those cruise missiles we dropped on empty air fields that cost multi millions $/£ these guns will remain useable for decades. 

[ditchman]

1 hour ago, blackbird said:

Typical British gutter press at its best, I hope they get a fortune in compensation.

And why do we blame Trump...........

as i have said before the press and the media run the world.......

[JohnfromUK]

5 minutes ago, Hamster said:

My, you are in a pedantic mood today 😜  as you keep mentioning damage by bullet fall out, there will be no damage, not with suitably light rimmie ammo, if and when some of these land on cars or roof tops or indeed if one hits someone in the backside, nothing will happen, just a painful red mark and a £50 dent, worth the risk in other words.

ps. even 100 RimRipShredder guns per runway is a small price to pay, unlike those cruise missiles we dropped on empty air fields that cost multi millions $/£ these guns will remain useable for decades. 

Shooting down (bullets) drones will not happen.  It can be done now (the Israelis have the technology) by laser.  NO fallout, dead flat trajectory, no windage.  The reasons it is impractical are;

• You can only cover a limited area ....... so the drone has to be there for you to attack it - and if it is there flights MUST stop.
• There is the risk that the drone itself falls and does damage (trust me, a 'dented' plane isn't just a £50 dent!)
• Even a laser cannot be used sensibly with planes in the air.

The answer is electronic detection external to the airfield, and electronic jamming measures, but even these are not effective against 'pre programmed' flight paths on drones.  Protection will come, and it will be expensive and is unlikely to be 100% effective - and will also have some false alarms.  The authorities cannot take any risks with an airline full of passengers ....... that could potentially fall on other vulnerable buildings/planes/roads/fuel depots on the ground.  Apart from the risk of multiple fatalities, it would be political suicide to have authorised something that caused such an accident.

The safe and sensible solution given present technology that we know about is what they are doing - i.e. keeping as good a watch for drone activity as they can, halting/diverting flights immediately on detection, and using the military measures to clear the hazard.  This will minimise the 'closed' time, but I doubt it can ever be eliminated now the 'genie is out of the bottle'

[grrclark]

1 minute ago, Hamster said:

Yes it is surprising that radar scrambling types of defence weren't already in place, makes you think how safe aircraft carriers are against incoming hypersonic missiles that have their own anti scramble defences built in. If you can defend against over the counter drones forget shooting down a hundred missiles with or without Phalanx. 

I don't think they are secure against hypersonic missiles, hence why there is much money being spent on hypersonic weapons like rail guns https://www.baesystems.com/en/product/electromagnetic--em--railgun

Radar scrambling defences or other tools to disrupt radio comm's come with something of an operational hazard on an airfield that relies wholly on radar and radio comm's.

Setting daft pedantic argument aside, and I appreciate it is a daft pedantic argument 😄,what is very apparent is that the rapid advent of new consumer technologies for relatively trivial things like drones or even autonomous vehicles is going to be a major challenge globally for governments and we are desperately behind the curve in having hardened infrastructure that can allow us to effectively deploy counter measures.

An example would be that all commercial air traffic used a securely encrypted communication technology that could permit the use of blanket signal blockers for any other type of radio or remote control comms around airfields.

Given that the weapon of convenience for the disaffected around the world just now is driving a car/van/lorry into groups of people then a self driving vehicle is an awesome weapon, no risk of getting shot or caught at the scene, just program the car/van/lorry to romp down the nearest pedestrian street at full chat or into a crowded pub, restaurant, etc. How do we effectively protect against that?

Even simpler would be to disrupt the mobile communications networks for a few days and we will all be knocking lumps out each other for the last pint of milk on the shelf.

The drone issue at Gatwick is the very thin edge of the wedge of the challenges that governments globally will have to face due to the relentless surge in technology.

[ditchman]

a while ago i was reading that a very powerful long run time drone had been produced running on a Hydrogen fuel cell...it has a good weight carrying capacity....with the tech' that is availble at present  ...surely coundnt it be adapted to hunt down a naughty drone fire a miriad of thin stainless cobweb of wires at the naughty drone ...capture it and bring it back or bring it down........

[grrclark]

2 minutes ago, ditchman said:

a while ago i was reading that a very powerful long run time drone had been produced running on a Hydrogen fuel cell...it has a good weight carrying capacity....with the tech' that is availble at present  ...surely coundnt it be adapted to hunt down a naughty drone fire a miriad of thin stainless cobweb of wires at the naughty drone ...capture it and bring it back or bring it down........

I like the thought of drone dogfights taking place, would make the disruption of waiting for your delayed plane bearable as you watched from the terminal windows.

It would be like a modern day swashbuckling pirate movie, the dashing navy captain drone pursuing the swarthy buccaneer naughty drone and giving it a broadside before hanging it off the yardarm at noon as a warning to all other naughty drones in the area.  

[bruno22rf]

Hard to imagine the RAF being able to defend against, say 10, drones if they were launched against a parked F35 - each a/c costing in excess of £120 million - what a cheap and effective weapon.

[Stonepark]

The answer wouldn't be smaller bullets, but bigger smarter ones.

40mm borfors with plastic based ammo sat at centre location next to terminals , computer /radar contolled with proximity fuses backed by gps programable  fuse which sets it off as it passes air field boundary or exceeds a height envelope or estimated distance to target.

[Hamster]

42 minutes ago, JohnfromUK said:

Shooting down (bullets) drones will not happen.  It can be done now (the Israelis have the technology) by laser.  NO fallout, dead flat trajectory, no windage.  The reasons it is impractical are;

• You can only cover a limited area ....... so the drone has to be there for you to attack it - and if it is there flights MUST stop.
• There is the risk that the drone itself falls and does damage (trust me, a 'dented' plane isn't just a £50 dent!)
• Even a laser cannot be used sensibly with planes in the air.

The answer is electronic detection external to the airfield, and electronic jamming measures, but even these are not effective against 'pre programmed' flight paths on drones.  Protection will come, and it will be expensive and is unlikely to be 100% effective - and will also have some false alarms.  The authorities cannot take any risks with an airline full of passengers ....... that could potentially fall on other vulnerable buildings/planes/roads/fuel depots on the ground.  Apart from the risk of multiple fatalities, it would be political suicide to have authorised something that caused such an accident.

The safe and sensible solution given present technology that we know about is what they are doing - i.e. keeping as good a watch for drone activity as they can, halting/diverting flights immediately on detection, and using the military measures to clear the hazard.  This will minimise the 'closed' time, but I doubt it can ever be eliminated now the 'genie is out of the bottle'

Well played/argued except :

We only need to cover limited areas.

I don't believe a broken, spinning drone will do that much damage to an airplane, (the risk of it actually landing on one is miniscule in any case) not even if it weighted a kilo, besides, so what, a day spent in Gatwick panel beaters is hardly a big price to pay.

I wasn't suggesting they deployed them whilst the runway was in full operational mode, the airport was on complete shutdown for 36 hours, a laser or gun may well have reduced this to mere hours. 

[ordnance]

7 minutes ago, Stonepark said:

The answer wouldn't be smaller bullets, but bigger smarter ones.

40mm borfors with plastic based ammo sat at centre location next to terminals , computer /radar contolled with proximity fuses backed by gps programable  fuse which sets it off as it passes air field boundary or exceeds a height envelope or estimated distance to target.

And if it gets it wrong, and decides a aircraft is drone. No government is going to OK any thing that could end up being a bigger danger to aircraft and civilians that the drone causing the issues.  Automated systems can go wrong. The patriot missile system for example was the greatest system ever,  turned out all it was good at was shooting down friendly aircraft. 

[Hamster]

21 minutes ago, bruno22rf said:

Hard to imagine the RAF being able to defend against, say 10, drones if they were launched against a parked F35 - each a/c costing in excess of £120 million - what a cheap and effective weapon.

Don't know if anyone has watched drone racing on sky channels lately, the "faster than the eye can see" speed, agility, controllability, instantaneous stop and changes of direction coupled to onboard cameras is something to behold. They literally cover hundreds of yards in seconds, no doubt there will be armed versions of these tiny things adapted for the battle field. One can easily imagine automatic versions of these being triggered remotely from miles away (using video footage from other surveillance drones) which will zip across valleys and terrain and self detonate a yard or two above clusters of hapless soldiers, possibly even in complete darkness.