Battery life issue makes Gatwick drone story seem implausible to me.

[cdev]

Are there any photos in the media of this thing?

[beanflying]

Getting to any truth at this stage isn't likely but it is certainly multiple flights.

Times for off the shelf drones can be in the order of 30 minutes without any problems and hacking them to carry more batteries to double that isn't hard as most have a reasonable excess lift available. Build a custom one and how long would you like to fly for up to maybe a couple of hours max for a quad platform using batteries.

[cdev]

It also seems implausible to me that they do not have the equipment to send another drone up there with for example, a fishing net. Here in the US various anti-drone systems are sold to weathy people to shoot down drones over their property and Ive seen reviews, they are very effective. Simply tossing a fishing net onto one with another drone, would work, or shooting them with a shotgun would be effective.

Is there any chance this is a fake story concocted up to push some other important event or story out of the media?

Getting to any truth at this stage isn't likely but it is certainly multiple flights.

Times for off the shelf drones can be in the order of 30 minutes without any problems and hacking them to carry more batteries to double that isn't hard as most have a reasonable excess lift available. Build a custom one and how long would you like to fly for up to maybe a couple of hours max for a quad platform using batteries.

[tsman]

It also seems implausible to me that they do not have the equipment to send another drone up there with for example, a fishing net.

Not sure Gatwick airport or the police have that sort of equipment. I've never heard of the police having any of that. The general police force here aren't anywhere near the cutting edge for technology :p They're mainly following it around at the moment and trying to find who is operating it. They're pondering again about shooting it with a shotgun.

I wouldn't entirely be surprised all of this coverage has encouraged copycats to start trolling. Whoever is operating it is definitely aware that they're doing something they shouldn't. They've said that the drone(s) reappears shortly after they start preparations to reopen the airport so the operator is keeping an eye on what is happening and sending it back up.

Is there any chance this is a fake story concocted up to push some other important event or story out of the media?

Not that I know of. The other main story is negotiations regarding the Brexit deals but that is a trainwreck that everybody already knows about.

[beanflying]

Unlikely to be faked to many independent people have seen it (unlike the moon landings of course ).

As I put in the other thread it is an 'aircraft' and in the US it is the same shooting down an Aircraft you need to have a very good reason. Causing a nuisance isn't that reason, public endangerment is. If it was flown low enough bean bags and ground based nets are possible with minimal chance of it going wrong. Aerial nets sorry but I call BS at this stage and are all about get some $$ from the military spend.

[sleemanj]

Net gun if you can get close enough would be best bet, invented and commonly used here in NZ for live deer capture from helicopter back in the 60s and 70s.

[beanflying]

You would have as much or more chance downing the drone in the downwash from the rotor on the Helicopter. It would be country specific but there is a possible issue with manned aircraft to UAV separation to overcome. It might seem like a cop out to some but a some of the 'near misses' reported around the world have actually been caused by full sized aviation doing the wrong thing.

Dumb ass Full Sized Helicopter endangering Surfers ordered in to protect video rights recently. The full sized helicopter was in clear breach of USA FAA regs. Yes the downwash dunked the quad.

https://youtu.be/RleCpgbUCGw

[cdev]

An explanation! These drones are "industrial".

#GatwickDrones | The #drone image in our previous tweets was used for illustrative purposes only and not the devices being sought. It is believed that the #Gatwick devices used are of an industrial specification. We are continuing to search for the operators

[cdev]

Is there any chance this is a fake story concocted up to push some other important event or story out of the media?

Not that I know of. The other main story is negotiations regarding the Brexit deals but that is a trainwreck that everybody already knows about.

Hardly! Here is a good example: Do British people know this about the WTO rules and NHS?

http://www.policyalternatives.ca/sites/default/files/uploads/publications/National_Office_Pubs/putting_health_first.pdf

(Edit: Looks like my hunch is right, I just read some Brexit news about some Brits losing health care.)

[beanflying]

An explanation! These drones are "industrial".

#GatwickDrones | The #drone image in our previous tweets was used for illustrative purposes only and not the devices being sought. It is believed that the #Gatwick devices used are of an industrial specification. We are continuing to search for the operators

Wow they saw the control board and electronics from a few hundred meters away to make that one up did they  Lets wait and see an Arduino based home made drone put together from bits sourced on evilbay in the end.

[radioactive]

Saw something earlier about the military being involved in the search.  Wouldn't they be able to pick someone up with IR vision pretty quick?

[beanflying]

Apart from the drone motors getting to maybe 50C and nearly or totally invisible to commercial radar the pilot could be 3-5km or even a lot more away in a shed or factory with an open roller door. Or take a look at the satellite image on foot sitting behind a hedge in a paddock.

https://www.google.com/maps/@51.1589884,-0.1804983,7678m/data=!3m1!1e3

[radioactive]

the pilot could be 3-5km or even a lot more away in a shed or factory with an open roller door.

Good point.  So if it is a remote pilot, then back to cdev's point about battery life.  Have they reported the total flight time of the quadcopter?  It is a bizarre story for sure.

[beanflying]

My figures on battery life are above. It's an unknown in this case but my speculation is 30 minutes at 60km/hr.

So if you take a maximum of 10km of travel @ 60km/hr to and from allow a bit of a safety leaves 15 minutes of PITA time on site.

[TheAmmoniacal]

I can't imagine any conventional firearm shooting it down, this is reality and not Sniper Elite 4. Though I've yet to see any video or picture of this drone, or any mention of flying height or distance from the runways.

EDIT: picture and video of the drone here: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-6517401/How-police-destroy-Gatwick-drone-misery.html

[beanflying]

There is a second thread running here https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/drones-close-gatwick-airport/

[tggzzz]

It also seems implausible to me that they do not have the equipment to send another drone up there with for example, a fishing net. Here in the US various anti-drone systems are sold to weathy people to shoot down drones over their property and Ive seen reviews, they are very effective. Simply tossing a fishing net onto one with another drone, would work, or shooting them with a shotgun would be effective.

Is there any chance this is a fake story concocted up to push some other important event or story out of the media?

It can be noted that the OP believes "the build up of mercury pollution in the environment is the worst thing about burning coal".
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/renewable-energy/my-country-is-going-to-commit-economic-suicide/msg2056312/#msg2056312

Are there any problems known about CO2 emissions?

[mikeselectricstuff]

It is very clear that one or more drones were seen very occasionally - take off, buzz the tower, land. News reports mention a dozen or so sightings.
The longer you're flying , the more chance it will be spotted and tracked to its landing place by helicopter.

 

[CJay]

It also seems implausible to me that they do not have the equipment to send another drone up there with for example, a fishing net. Here in the US various anti-drone systems are sold to weathy people to shoot down drones over their property and Ive seen reviews, they are very effective. Simply tossing a fishing net onto one with another drone, would work, or shooting them with a shotgun would be effective.

Is there any chance this is a fake story concocted up to push some other important event or story out of the media?

Getting to any truth at this stage isn't likely but it is certainly multiple flights.

Times for off the shelf drones can be in the order of 30 minutes without any problems and hacking them to carry more batteries to double that isn't hard as most have a reasonable excess lift available. Build a custom one and how long would you like to fly for up to maybe a couple of hours max for a quad platform using batteries.

Gatwick is a large area and the drones are apparently only in the air for a few seconds at a time so it's like whack a mole, nigh impossible to predict where it'll be, how long it'll be up, etc and if the operator(s) is moving around that just makes it so much more difficult.

It's an odd coincidence that the figurehead of Britain First was arrested at Gatwick for breachin bail earlier this week and if it turns out one of their idiots has done this they've really screwed the pooch.

Reports from a reliable friend who lives on the periphery of the airport also suggest it's more than a simple prank and that there's more going on than just some dick with a drone.

There is more to this than some idiot who thinks its fun but it's not a government conspiracy.

[beanflying]

Mmm BREXIT not going well for any side at present pick your team that wants different news headlines for a while? Everyone into their Tin Foil hats and earth bunkers in the backyard .....

At least we have kept the same PM for more than a month 

[Rerouter]

The other issue for the tower is, that its really hard to spot a drone over a distance of about 100m, still they likely would have it if it was a DJI flavor drone using wifi control. most airports already use wifi positioning of people in the terminal, so if one or more nodes saw an unknown network that corresponded, they could really lock down there options,

If its an RF link. gets a little bit harder. but with a days worth of flybys, I would imagine they would have called in multiple people to triangulate it. sure the drone is much noisier, but the command frequencies are pretty quiet at an airport.

I know sydneys airport has people like this on call, and apparently a few ground crew who are HAM operators, As I've heard of them catching a few trucks that had GPS jammers fitted by the drivers.

And finally if its a GPRS link, then the perp will really be stuffed, do some correlation of the data and he will be found.

[mikeselectricstuff]

And finally if its a GPRS link, then the perp will really be stuffed, do some correlation of the data and he will be found.

If they're smart enough to do that, they will probably be smart enough to have used untraceble SIMs and phones/modems and destroyed them afterwards.

[Rerouter]

more, that sourcing the sims, and the 50-100 meter triangulation they can pull these days can narrow down there search area and suspects considerably.

[mikeselectricstuff]

more, that sourcing the sims, and the 50-100 meter triangulation they can pull these days can narrow down there search area and suspects considerably.

Except the pilot could be anywhere in the world.
Your country may vary but here you can go into a shop and buy SIMs anonymously.

[beanflying]

Generally the systems don't use GPRS for control. The DJI based stuff really only needs phone data to download maps (can be done by normal wifi too) then allow or disallow flights as part of their flight app and generally clag things up. PITA but not of concern here.

Open source project here for an idea on non commercial drone open source options and hardware, surface, aerial and water http://ardupilot.org/
Frequency or frequencies can be whatever you like if you know how (illegally). Generally 2.4 or 5.8 gets used in most countries. Generally Quads will have a video link and some telemetry back to the Transmitter.

Not sure of the tracking options in this part of the fairly crowded spectrum in urban areas but if it is set up to channel hop like some of the conventional R/C stuff it would make it that bit harder.