Drones at Gatwick

[peterms]

1 hour ago, desensitized43 said:

I'd bet money this is some environmental group.

I'd be very surprised if it was, and I think other environmentalists would completely reject a stunt which could have placed lives at risk.

[Xann]

1 hour ago, peterms said:

I'd be very surprised if it was, and I think other environmentalists would completely reject a stunt which could have placed lives at risk.

There's some vigorous FB headshaking going on from two of the more likely mobs.

[TheAuthority]

2 hours ago, Davkaus said:

These things can't stay in the air for too long. Why aren't they tracking them back to where they're being charged? 

There's only one explanation:

[Genie]

Waits to see some spotty teenager in cuffs. Crying his eyes out, was only meant to be a bit of fun. 

[Xann]

You can tell Grayling's on it.

Edited December 20, 2018 by Xann
Apostrophe innit.

[peterms]

I'm finding it difficult to understand the lack of effective response to this.

We have known for some time that drones can damage aircraft, perhaps seriously.

We know that drones can be equipped with things that can kill, quite irrespective of bumping into aircraft (we know this because we make them, and send them off to kill people).

We know that drones are used by the criminal fraternity, and by terrorists.

We know that aircraft, and airports, are key targets for terrorists - high profile damage, big fear factor, massive knock-on disruption from tight scheduling.

Various think tanks spend lots of energy talking about the rise of asymmetric warfare, new techy approaches to causing disruption and so on.

Government bodies, and airports, will have done risk assesments about possible threats and how to respond, and drones will certainly have been one thing they covered.

Frankfurt airport has falcons trained to bring down drones.

Since prehistoric times, we have been able to bring down things from the sky if we think it's worth the effort and if they are in reach, using fairly crude technology.

We spend vast, eyewatering sums on defence.

And yet, despite all the above, Gatwick has been paralysed for hours, and we have a group of guys standing round wondering if they should try and shoot the drones, while the collective effort of the police and military seem unable to deal with the situation.

What am I missing here?

 

[Chindie]

Most modern consumer drones' firmware won't allow it to fly in restricted zones. To override this you need to install modified firmware, which very few people (comparative to the number of drones out there) would bother to do. The other alternative is to make your own, which is doable, but again not many people are going to bother. I'd presume the authorities believed the protections offered against consumer drones, plus the deterrent of criminal prosecution, was enough, and they've dropped the ball.

These drones are supposedly quite sophisticated, not off the shelf. This is why the authorities are having trouble tracing the drones, they lose them quickly. It's also why this is unlikely to be someone just pissing about.

Drones also aren't easy to bring down if the operator is on the ball and the drone is capable enough - you're trying to bring down a fairly small object at significant height, potentially moving very quickly.

The solution the military seems to be looking at is something that would electronically disrupt the drones. The issue there is in using it, whatever it is, is you're likely to affect other devices in the vicinity, and perhaps this method is damaging to equipment. In an airport that's potentially a disaster.

I suspect the apparent lack of doing much is the authorities trying to work out if they can trace the operator, and not use other means, as they fear whatever else they do might be damaging in itself.

[Chindie]

Quote

As the Gatwick drones chaos rolls on, with the airport now set to reopen at 8pm UK time at the earliest*, many people have been asking a simple question: why the hell can't the authorities just shoot down the offending drones?

Like all simple questions, the answer is complex. Counter-drones tech is a new field and not quite as easy as you might imagine.

1. Shoot the bastard down!

The most obvious solution is to shoot down the drones using a rifle or a shotgun. Here the problem is simple: a rifle bullet fired upwards travels a very long way if it doesn't hit its target, or passes through it. If you're using a .308"/7.62mm rifle pointed upwards at 70 degrees, the dangerous zone in front of it where the bullet could land is up to 2.5 miles or four kilometres long.

Current police issue rifles tend to fire .223"/5.56mm rounds, which can still travel up to 8,000ft (1.5 miles, 2.4km) high if fired at 70 degrees.

Are the police going to evacuate a 2.5-mile strip of West Sussex so they can go all Dirty Harry on the drones? Of course not.

What about a shotgun? This is far more likely than using a rifle. The danger zone for a shotgun firing the usual shot pellets is about 390 ft, or 120 metres, long, according to Blighty's Ministry of Defence. Unfortunately, there's no guarantee that once shot, the drones will land on the spot. A partial hit could send the drones flying off to crash on someone's house (the town of Crawley is next to Gatwick), or leave bits of the drones lying around on the airfield – ready to be sucked into a jet engine. Far from ideal.

It also depends where the drones are flying. If it is not flying directly over the airfield, you would need the landowner's permission to start shooting at it – as well as the permission of every other landowner that both the bullet/shotgun pellets might pass over on their way to the drone, and for good measure the permission of whoever might be the lucky recipient of the spent bullets or shot as they fall to earth. A faff, but not impossible.

Judging by police reports that the drones are "of an industrial specification", it could be that we're dealing with something like a DJI Matrice or an Aeryon Skyranger – larger than your average kid's toy (or a DJI Phantom, for that matter). Shotgun pellets lose energy rapidly: if the drones is flying at a few hundred feet above the ground, it might be the case that it's outside effective shotgun range.

2. Jam its signals!

The next thing you could do is jam the command signals controlling the drones. Is that doable?

Doable? Yes. Practical? Not really. Fraught with danger? Oh yes.

It's also illegal.

No, really. Assuming the local police even have access to spectrum analysis equipment that allows them to find what frequency is being used to control the drone, they need legal permission to start broadcasting jamming signals.

That said, maybe they do have spectrum analyser kit?

Either way, the permission the plod need to jam the drones is something they simply don't have right now, as far as we're aware. You need to have authority under the Wireless Telegraphy Act to start broadcasting any kind of signal – even one intended to bring down a fleet of naughty drones.

(Edit: Our attention has been drawn to S93 (1)(b) of the Police Act, which allows an authorising officer to green-light wireless interference if a serious crime is taking place. Whether or not flying drones over airports is a serious crime – think fraud, violence, or something that would put you away for three or more years – is perhaps a sticking point.)

But let's forget the law for a bit and think about it. Even if the drones were being flown live, as opposed to following pre-programmed waypoints, simply jamming the control signals introduces a real problem: where will the drones go? What will it do?

Most modern drones have return-to-base functions that kick in if they lose their control signal. Some do not. And if one of these drones doesn't do that, there's no telling what it might do: it might carry on flying in a straight line until it crashes. Or it could veer off towards all those very expensive airliners parked at the gates. It might even drop out of the sky and onto someone's roof, or greenhouse, or head.

It's just too unpredictable.

3. Get a trained bird to grab it!

Too expensive and complicated, according to the flying Dutchmen who actually tried this idea a couple of years ago.

4. Fly a helicopter next to it and shoot it down! Or throw a net at it!

Refer to the first point about shooting. Also, what if the drones’ operator feels like adding a helicopter kill to their list of "bad things I have achieved today"? All they'd have to do is fly it into the rotor blades – or into the glass canopy protecting the pilots. If the drones are quadcopters, they can manoeuvre in three dimensions, rather than having to fly in a straight line like a normal aeroplane.

Phil Tarry, director of Halo Drones, told El Reg: "Other technologies proposed include dropping nets on them. Nets might not be able to go high enough. First you've got to catch them but it seems they're having problems tracking them."

5. Cut off the GPS so it lands!

Tarry continued: "I did the training for a system that was to be used during the London Olympics. Everything using GPS within a large area stops. It swamps the receiver. Difficulty with that being, if it's not using GPS, then that won't have any effect. It'll cause significant disruption to GPS, though."

Do you want to be the one who signs off on the use of something that potentially screws over nearby GPS receivers in phones, tablets, and satnavs, and aboard dozens of airliners? No, thought not. Aeroplanes do not rely solely on GPS, and have other navigational systems, but do you want to take that chance given the paperwork involved and potential added travel chaos and looming compensation claims? Do you want to find out the hard way that some planes need GPS to initialise takeoff procedures? Again, thought not.

Tarry also speculated that the drones’ operator could in fact be a number of people, based on the drones (plural) appearing and disappearing at intervals during the day, in spite of 280 police on the ground searching for whoever caused this disaster.

"It surely can't be an off-the-shelf DJI system," he said. "Either they've hacked it or it's a kit-built drone."

DJI drones are supplied with geofencing tech baked into their firmware, though, as previously reported, the drones themselves are relatively easy to hack and remove the restrictions.

So there you have it. At the time of writing, Sussex Police had contacted the British Army for help downing the drones with unspecified "specialised military tech", so perhaps they might shoot them down after all. ®

* This is very likely going to be pushed back soon. Airfield Non-Available times have been repeatedly rolled back by air traffic control throughout the day.

The Register

Tldr - it's harder to take down a drone than you'd think, especially at an airport and especially near built up areas.

[AvfcRigo82]

1 hour ago, Chindie said:

As the Gatwick drones chaos rolls on, with the airport now set to reopen at 8pm UK time at the earliest*, many people have been asking a simple question: why the hell can't the authorities just shoot down the offending drones?

Is there any point opening the airport if the drones are still present causing disruption?

 

[hogso]

How about if they fly another drone into it, maybe one with spikes on it, or a little axe, or a cattle prod or something. 

If that works, commission the tv show. Drone Wars - the Robot Wars of the sky. 

[villaglint]

1 hour ago, hogso said:

How about if they fly another drone into it, maybe one with spikes on it, or a little axe, or a cattle prod or something. 

If that works, commission the tv show. Drone Wars - the Robot Wars of the sky. 

This is genuinely a good idea. 

[Demitri_C]

4 minutes ago, villaglint said:

This is genuinely a good idea. 

I thought the point was they were worried about it hitting anybody from a great height?

[mjmooney]

Has anybody suggested it's the Russians yet? 

[villaglint]

7 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

I thought the point was they were worried about it hitting anybody from a great height?

I meant for a TV show

[villaglint]

6 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

Has anybody suggested it's the Russians yet? 

I think we've all just assumed it is. Either that or ISIS or Jeremy Corbyn. 

[mottaloo]

1 hour ago, hogso said:

How about if they fly another drone into it, maybe one with spikes on it, or a little axe, or a cattle prod or something. 

If that works, commission the tv show. Drone Wars - the Robot Wars of the sky. 

Did you mention robot wars, my friend ?

Edited December 21, 2018 by mottaloo

[Wainy316]

Just get Jason Puncheon in to bring it down

[tomav84]

50 minutes ago, villaglint said:

I think we've all just assumed it is. Either that or ISIS or Jeremy Corbyn. 

 

[hogso]

1 hour ago, villaglint said:

This is genuinely a good idea. 

Right, and there could be an Irish one covered with fur, and oh no! In the first battle it comes up against a house drone with a flame thrower on top! 

[Dr_Pangloss]

Has to be said, what a truly pathetic response to this issue, look like a bunch of clowns.