Drone sightings over Gatwick Airport

Don Atkinson posted:

hmmm..............

As of today the police have one "danaged" drone (could be anyones !) and one wrong line of enquiry.

Not good.

Quite often the Police will deliberately keep details of investigations very secretive. 

They may know a lot more than they're letting on. We can only hope so : |

You're not wrong young, Debs!

Tony2011 posted:

You're not wrong young, Debs!

Right actor, wrong film, maybe...

"Are the Russians involved, Sir" ?

naim_nymph posted:

Don Atkinson posted:

hmmm..............

As of today the police have one "danaged" drone (could be anyones !) and one wrong line of enquiry.

Not good.

 

Quite often the Police will deliberately keep details of investigations very secretive. 

They may know a lot more than they're letting on. We can only hope so : |

And quite rightly so.

Perhaps the authorities need to use small to medium sized fixed wing UAVs with titanium props and leading edges equipped with ground based (possibly passive) radar guidance and TV cameras.  These could be fast enough to catch and take down other UAVs simply by collision (hence the toughened props and wing LEs).  Using a VR headset would make the piloting task for the interceptor UAV a lot easier.

That would require some skill Huge, though would be great fun...and of course some higher end  prosumer drones have safety collision avoidance so would actively work against a collision from what ever source.. unless you disabled it, or over rode to collide....or collided vertically from purely above it...or travelled at significant relative speed.

There are issues on using VR headset technology for full ultra low latency spatial awareness required for manoeuvres like collisions... you just can’t really achieve it with current technology.. and for reliable high speed telemetry over a reasonable distance you would need something other than the ISM bands... I have been involved with some interesting talks professionally on possibilities here..but it’s not for the most part here and now.

Cryptic comment on BBC News this evening, after stating that the two people that had been arrested had been released without charge and that a damaged drone found near the airport was being examined forensically, along the lines of "there is just a chance that there had been no drone after all".....!!!!!!???????

Innocent Bystander posted:

Cryptic comment on BBC News this evening, after stating that the two people that had been arrested had been released without charge and that a damaged drone found near the airport was being examined forensically, along the lines of "there is just a chance that there had been no drone after all".....!!!!!!???????

oh that poor police guy who added ”It's possible there was never a drone at Gatwick Airport after all" to some statement. Of course they should investigate that possibility but now they got the conspiracy guys going. 

I met an old friend this weekend who had replaced rc-planes to racing with drones. He told me most of these guys buy standard parts and build their own. Start with a carbon fibre frame. They crash a lot so they need hardware they can fix themselves. Such a machine could be hard to trace via purchases.

Of course, the reality is that it was a Brexit advance warning, giving a taste of the chaos that will come to flights to or from EU countries at the end of March.

Innocent Bystander posted:

Of course, the reality is that it was a Brexit advance warning, giving a taste of the chaos that will come to flights to or from EU countries at the end of March.

Its EU27 + 44 = 71 countries. See the upside, Heathrow will make a great playground for drones :-)

jlarsson posted:

Innocent Bystander posted:

Cryptic comment on BBC News this evening, after stating that the two people that had been arrested had been released without charge and that a damaged drone found near the airport was being examined forensically, along the lines of "there is just a chance that there had been no drone after all".....!!!!!!???????

oh that poor police guy who added ”It's possible there was never a drone at Gatwick Airport after all" to some statement. Of course they should investigate that possibility but now they got the conspiracy guys going. 

I met an old friend this weekend who had replaced rc-planes to racing with drones. He told me most of these guys buy standard parts and build their own. Start with a carbon fibre frame. They crash a lot so they need hardware they can fix themselves. Such a machine could be hard to trace via purchases.

A criminal to be more successful (God forbid) will most likely not be using standard radio and telemetry parts, as they are relatively easy to block (alongside with everyone’s home  Wifi in an area or neighbourhood ) and identify .. and further will leave quite a tell tale signature.. almost certainly anyone serious here will be using customised / bespoke radio, telemetry and automation that is absolutely not using the ISM bands. If it was me I know where I would put it... but then perhaps just as well I am not a criminal.

The conspiracy theory is interesting.. I must admit in these days of social media and every one having a go, I was surprised at the lack of any footage of a drone/UAV, apart from one blurry non definitive video posting where it could have been a large bird, or debris blowing in the wind. Heads are going to roll if this turns out all to have been a misunderstanding....

Mist worryingly, as with so many things covered in detail in the media these days, this whole episode will have shown terrorists a vulnerability that could be exploited in the window before it is closed down.

Also is anyone actually aware of any collision between a UAV/drone and manned aircraft anywhere in the world ever? I am not, you hear of all these so called near misses, but no actual collision .... prepared to be informed on that one... I’d expect a collision with a consumer drone to at least leave scuff mark or  denting on the manned aircraft akin to a large bird strike, or surely more likely sucked into the jet turbines ...  so you are probably more likely to win the Euromillions jackpot.. twice.. it does all feel a little strange...

 Unlike drones, RC & free flying model aircraft have been around for years  & there have been many such accidents.   But getting back to drone hits, there was a report last year in Canada of a drone hitting a 6 seater aircraft  resulting in minor damage.  A BA A320 was hit by a drone coming into LHR in 2016 but did not incur damage;  the accident was subsequently denied by UK Gov as no debris was found,  but the 'plane did hit something.  

And a more positive use of real drones

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-46616004

And a good example of a modified fixed wing UAV... this is the real world of drones... both good and for bad... not little toy quadcopters that the media get obsessed with.

What a shambles, mis sightings, mis arrests and now mis communications... I think organisations need to get a grip.. perhaps a little less sensationalism and more hard facts before going public stating this or that... and why no photography evidence of any ‘drone’ incursion... how exactly have this sightings been ‘verified’ by Gatwick airport staff.. how do we know it’s not rubbish in the wind or a large bird like seagull. 

My thoughts are with that poor couple who have needlessly been hounded.... disgraceful.

Totally agree Simon, vacations ruined and possibly this couple have a ruined life ahead of them.

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

What a shambles, mis sightings, mis arrests and now mis communications... I think organisations need to get a grip.. perhaps a little less sensationalism and more hard facts before going public stating this or that... and why no photography evidence of any ‘drone’ incursion... how exactly have this sightings been ‘verified’ by Gatwick airport staff.. how do we know it’s not rubbish in the wind or a large bird like seagull. 

My thoughts are with that poor couple who have needlessly been hounded.... disgraceful.

I think you should give them time to complete their investigation. Even if they find no evidence of drones then the story of how events occurred should be interesting. I can understand an airport over-reacting given the consequences of reacting to slow.

One interesting question I heard in passenger-interviews in media-coverage here is if Gatwick held on to their traffic to much rather than moving flights to other airports. 

Here in Sweden we have these recurring sightings of Russian mini-submarines in critical areas which cause big hunts and always ends up with nothing, We call them "budget-submarines" as it always happen in connection with the governments budget-discussions.  Actually we had one strange incident with an old Russian submarine running up on land in a non-critical area. I think the conclusion was that the captain and parts of the crew were really drunk.

jlarsson posted:

 

One interesting question I heard in passenger-interviews in media-coverage here is if Gatwick held on to their traffic to much rather than moving flights to other airports. 

If I recall correctly incoming flights were diverted to other airports, but some quite far away (e.g. Glasgow), but regarding outgoing flights, firstly I think it is possible that the London airports’ schedules are largely fully booked up, certainly Heathrow, while I think London City may have limitations on plane size, secondly I imagine it takes quite s lot of organisation to change a flight departure from one airport to another, so not easily done in just a few hours, and thirdly a lot of planes were grounded at Gatwick and so there may not have been planes available for alternative departure airports.

My brother was landing when Gatwick was closed for the second time they where diverted to Luton where they spent three hours on the runway all in all it added 18 hours to his journey.

On the subject of the couple arrested, named and vilified in the press and then released without any charge I cannot even begin to imagine what that experience would have been like and the newspapers involved should be fined heavily and forced to pay a large amount of compensation.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

Bob the Builder posted:

My brother was landing when Gatwick was closed for the second time they where diverted to Luton where they spent three hours on the runway all in all it added 18 hours to his journey.

On the subject of the couple arrested, named and vilified in the press and then released without any charge I cannot even begin to imagine what that experience would have been like and the newspapers involved should be fined heavily and forced to pay a large amount of compensation.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

You would have thought that the newspapers would have learned from the BBC v Cliff Richard episode. I hope this couple sue the rogue reporters for every penny they've got, assuming they hadn't committed some minor offence that drew attention to themselves.

It looks like the BBC were not involved in the naming,  I noted that they made a point of saying so when the couple were released.   So who to sue as most all the other news TV stations & the paper press were guilty.  It’s not so much who to sue but how to set about such a number.  Could end up as a Law Society intervention.

Interesting discussion on Radio 4 yesterday. The point was made that most European countries don’t have the privacy restrictions of the U.K. The identity of this couple was given to the press agencies by neighbours, not the police, and was readily available via the Internet. I’m not saying it makes the judgemental reporting that was published by our gutter press acceptable, but it does make keeping the lid on this type of information very difficult. Yet another example of the downside of modern information technology. In the good old days of TV, radio and papers being the only source of information censorship was much easier to enforce.

If it was the neighbours who named the couple, then I guess that there was an existing level of aggro in the street before this happened and that now there will be a few house moves.