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Drones at Gatwick

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  • I must admit, as a part-time Professional Wedding Photographer, I've had a drone (a Mavic Pro 2) on my shopping list for a while and was planning on doing the relevant training to get the licence to enable me to use it commercially.

    As much as its the ultimate boys toy, I do worry that as soon as I'd buy it, they'd get banned so I've held back.
  • It is either the Russians or the ecomentalists.

  • Hopefully there will not be any copycats at other airports now they see how much disruption it can cause.
  • stonemuse said:

    clb74 said:

    Looks like I'm the only one who thinks there's more to this.

    stonemuse said:

    All seems a bit strange this ... possibly more to it than we realise?


    Thank God for that thought I was going mad.
    Without knowing what's going on , it's good to see some think it's cool and Muttley wants to start suing people .
  • Well timed to distract from Brexit imo.
  • At my last company we had to make a high-end corporate video and had to use a drone as part of the production to get loads of panoramic shots from the sky.

    The guy operating it was a fellow Englishman in Oz and after a couple of hours talking with him and seeing him work the drone my mind was well and truly blown.

    Within seconds of launch this fucking drone was so high you couldn’t see it and he flew this thing from the hill we were on and was dropping it right above peoples houses in the valley below - and getting HD footage that he was watching LIVE on his monitor. Fuck me.

    If he’d wanted to he could have taken this fucking thing INSIDE their houses and filmed them doing the washing up or having a J. Arthur. Unfuckingbelievable.

    We had a chat afterwards and he said that although regulations were in place that it was impossible to really do anything if someone wanted to breach them as it was basically a self-regulatory regime.

    Only a matter of time before some arse-clown did this sort of thing and I’d not be surprised if they had no idea they had even caused this disruption.
  • JiMMy 85 said:

    I don’t really understand the criticism of the authorities on this thread. I’d imagine we don’t have all the information, and I’m not entirely sure what it is they’re supposed to have done that they haven’t.

    It’s very easy to say ‘it wouldn’t be allowed to happen elsewhere!’ but without an example to back that up, I don’t see the logic.

    Agree with this.
    It is easy to be an armchair expert on every issue, but sometimes you have to put your trust in the people making the decisions.

    That doesn't negate the issues that have affected those trying to fly in and out of Gatwick - and the reported lack of information to them - but the airport and the police must have been under extreme pressure to sort it out.
  • Telling people don’t come to Gatwick for the foreseeable really isn’t good enough
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  • What will thryv

    I'm no mastermind, but drones are small, whereas a Boeing 747 is bleeding massive. If a drone collided with a plane, the wrst that could happen is a bit of a scratch to the paint on the bodywork.
    Perhaps if Ryan air, BA and Virgin could stop being so precious, the odd plane could fly.

    image

    thats what happens when a plane hits a flock of birds
    So why aren't planes grounded when birfs fly nearby, or on Xmas Eve when Santa is doing the rounds.

    ... Birfs?
  • Pretty embarrassing listening to how the police & Army! are trying to get this under control.
  • edited December 2018
    Chizz said:

    Police saying that shooting it down would just be too dangerous. I’m no expert and have to accept that explanation but it seems odd to me that a special or even not so special marksman with a suitable weapon ought to be able to shoot down a drone.

    I’m sure someone with greater knowledge will be able to tell me I’m wrong.

    Or just make sure people are inside and no aeroplanes airbourne and just shoot it down, doesn't seem very difficult. But admittedly i dont even understand why it has caused this much drama other than being a potential threat
    It's quite difficult if you can't see it. I imagine it's difficult to keep track of a drone within a 674 hectare area of land. And, once it's spotted, you'd have to hope it didn't move by the time a police marksman arrived. I don't know much about drones, but one thing I do know is that they're very mobile.

    There may be more than one. And if one is spotted and lost sight of, it's probably best to assume that it's still in the air somewhere. (Would you want to be the copper who tells air traffic control "we have lost sight of it, so you're probably ok to carry on flying. Hopefully it's not still up there and hopefully it won't bring down any planes"?)

    Years ago I did the Army "All Arms Air Defence" course which was basically a load of us firing machine guns at a radio controlled plane (probably bigger than drones). 8 machine gun crews blasted away all morning on Salisbury Plain and the biggest danger was not turning the guns on our mates as we tracked the target. Then just before lunch we shot the thing down. Or so we thought. The plane had malfunctioned and crashed. I think trying to cover the area at Gatwick plus the vertical dimension is impossible without radar tracking. The chances of a sniper being in the right place and veing able to track the target at the same time are pretty remote, given sniper scopes have a very limited field of view.
  • Is it possible this could be a smokescreen for something else? It seems very odd that with all the technology available these days that this drone really can't be tracked.
  • SDAddick said:

    What will thryv

    I'm no mastermind, but drones are small, whereas a Boeing 747 is bleeding massive. If a drone collided with a plane, the wrst that could happen is a bit of a scratch to the paint on the bodywork.
    Perhaps if Ryan air, BA and Virgin could stop being so precious, the odd plane could fly.

    image

    thats what happens when a plane hits a flock of birds
    So why aren't planes grounded when birfs fly nearby, or on Xmas Eve when Santa is doing the rounds.
    Oh mate I've got some bad news for you...
    Amazon now have the Christmas contract.
  • Is it possible this could be a smokescreen for something else? It seems very odd that with all the technology available these days that this drone really can't be tracked.

    Yes, they definitely can be tracked. But they are a very small target to hit safely in a civilian environment.
  • I'm no mastermind, but drones are small, whereas a Boeing 747 is bleeding massive. If a drone collided with a plane, the wrst that could happen is a bit of a scratch to the paint on the bodywork.
    Perhaps if Ryan air, BA and Virgin could stop being so precious, the odd plane could fly.

    Not if it collided with an engine. Bird strikes cause massive damage.
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  • I’m not a conspiracy theorist in any sense of the word, but this just feels dodgy.
  • Dont we still have Boris's water cannon?
  • Where's Doctor Who when we need her?

    Maybe this is an elaborate trailer for the Christmas Special and we can all blame the BBC?
  • From BBC website

    The force previously said they "did not want to shoot the drones because of the risk from stray bullets".


    I am sorry but the Military are involved in this if they are worried they cant hit the damn thing and there will be stray bullets they we would be fucked in a war
  • What I’m finding strange is that considering the high level of news coverage on this, plus the thousands of people stranded in and around the airport - there hasn’t been a single video/picture of said drone?
  • cafctom said:

    What I’m finding strange is that considering the high level of news coverage on this, plus the thousands of people stranded in and around the airport - there hasn’t been a single video/picture of said drone?

    Same here. I'm not a conspiracy theorist but something's not quite right. If the drone is so hard to detect that neither the police not the army can track it after 24 hours then the defence of the realm is at a higher risk than a few Irish smugglers crossing a non-existent border.
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