Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Drones are kinda still a newish thing and it takes the law a while to catch up, along with police and other agencies.

Interestingly enough when that David Blaine magician did his stunt of not eating in a clear plastic cage over I think it was the Thames river some "arsehole" as I believe you british say just had to be as big an ass hole (american term) as he possibly could be by having a RC helicopter dangle a hamburger just outside his cell.

I don'ct recall anyone seeing its anything but a wankprank. But call them drones instead of RC planes or copters and it changes, , doesn't it?

an ass hole (american term)

Cheers, I don’t think I would have got that otherwise.

Yeah, until he clarified I was barely keeping up...

 Techpriestsupport wrote:
Drones are kinda still a newish thing and it takes the law a while to catch up, along with police and other agencies.

Interestingly enough when that David Blaine magician did his stunt of not eating in a clear plastic cage over I think it was the Thames river some "arsehole" as I believe you british say just had to be as big an ass hole (american term) as he possibly could be by having a RC helicopter dangle a hamburger just outside his cell.

I don'ct recall anyone seeing its anything but a wankprank. But call them drones instead of RC planes or copters and it changes, , doesn't it?

The problem is that drones are much easier to fly than RC helicopters because they have software to make them automatically stable and allow following a course automatically.

If someone wants to attack an airport with drones, they don't even need to be there to watch the drone and pilot it. They just need to program the drones with a course that takes them down the runway at irregular intervals, then return to base for new batteries.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 Techpriestsupport wrote:
Drones are kinda still a newish thing and it takes the law a while to catch up, along with police and other agencies.

Interestingly enough when that David Blaine magician did his stunt of not eating in a clear plastic cage over I think it was the Thames river some "arsehole" as I believe you british say just had to be as big an ass hole (american term) as he possibly could be by having a RC helicopter dangle a hamburger just outside his cell.

I don'ct recall anyone seeing its anything but a wankprank. But call them drones instead of RC planes or copters and it changes, , doesn't it?

The problem is that drones are much easier to fly than RC helicopters because they have software to make them automatically stable and allow following a course automatically.

If someone wants to attack an airport with drones, they don't even need to be there to watch the drone and pilot it. They just need to program the drones with a course that takes them down the runway at irregular intervals, then return to base for new batteries.

Ah, you made a useful, intelligent and informative reply here, thank you!

I never got that old RC aircraft were harder to fly than drones, I've never used one so never looked into the bit about the drone having flight assistance. Yes that does put a spin on things. The easier it gets to operate something thye more people will use and misuse it.

Old RC aircraft were hard to fly because you had no autopilot feature, you had to watch the plane (keeping LOS on it at all times) and manually move the controls in response to whatever it was doing. Want to turn? Nudge the stick left and hope you don't over-bank and lose control, and judge by eye when you've made enough of a turn. It takes some crashes to get it, and before the era of cheap foam models with cheap electric motors you had to spend a lot of hours building/repairing a model each time. Modern model aircraft (not just multi-rotor drones) can have an autopilot capable of flying autonomously between GPS waypoints in addition to direct manual control. Any idiot who gets a modern toy can go straight to flying it and causing trouble without ever having to learn anything besides how to hack the software to remove the geofencing and then add a GPS waypoint in the approach path to the airport.

Also, can we get rid of the idea that "drone" means "cheap multi-rotor toy"? It's a generic term for any remotely-piloted or autonomous aircraft, and all of the autopilot stuff on your average multi-rotor toy can be added to a plane just as easily.

(Which, BTW, kind of shuts down any idea of drones as some kind of sophisticated act of terrorism. The threat isn't from someone buying a drone off ebay and putting a small bomb on it, it's from terrorists building DIY cruise missiles loaded with hundreds of pounds of explosives.)

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
They held them for 36 hours so this is beyond the normal 24 hours that they get without asking for anything special,

so there are potential questions about why they got the extra 12 hours (or perhaps more as they can ask for up to 96), was it down to there being a potential solid case (fair enough) or just that this was a 'serious' offense (more debatable) as that's meant to be for murder and terrorism type things not just closing an airport (without actively endangering planes)

but its certainly the case that the media have a case to answer

Held for 36 hours, when there was only a suspicion, based on owning drones in the past. An alibi was available within hours for the couple. There was never a solid case.

The police got themselves in a position where they had to make an arrest and chose someone who may be guilty...of something.

I'd have to do some more research but various terrorism acts were not in play for this arrest. It would lead to an almighty paper trail exposing greater incompetence. If they did then someone is for the sack.


Anyway.

Vague threats of drones operating within a large area are enough to close an airport down for days. Terrorists take note. This is one way to send a country into melt down.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The police can't be blamed for taking suspects into custody for questioning and releasing them when it is found that there is no substantive evidence against them.

They can and they should.

It isn't a rare occurrence.

Evidence of their innocence was available within hours. Something the police were reluctant to provide so they could pursue their case in the hope they could find something.

No doubt the couple's solicitor will bring an action for unlawful imprisonment.

Well we don’t really know the details of the arrest and investigation, or what led them down that route for so long.

“Unlawful imprisonment” is going to be quite a stretch given the police can legitimately hold you you for about a day or so without charge as part of an ongoing investigation. Most of the anger by the couple involved seems directed at the newspapers for their coverage not the police, and that’s where the legal action will likely head.

Drip, drip, drip

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-46709353

Police sorry for arrested couple.

Sussex Police's chief constable has said he feels "really sorry" for the couple who were held for 36 hours over the Gatwick Airport drones chaos.

Paul Gait and Elaine Kirk, who were released without charge, said they felt "violated" after their home was searched and their identities exposed.

Giles York told the BBC Radio 4's Today programme he was "convinced the grounds for arrest were well-founded".

Two drones found near the airport have been ruled out of being involved.

Mr York defended the decision to hold Mr Gait for an extended period, despite his employer saying he was at work during the drone flights.

He added: "I'm really sorry for what [Mr Gait] has experienced and the feeling of violation around it.

"[But] what might have been worse as an experience for him would have been to be released under investigation still.

"We were able to exhaust all our lines of inquiry on that first instance and were able to release him from police custody saying he was no longer a suspect."

About 1,000 flights were affected during the chaos between 19 and 21 December when drones were sighted near the runway.

A suggestion by a senior Sussex police officer that there may have been no drones was later dismissed as a miscommunication.

Mr York said police received 115 reports of sightings, including 92 confirmed as coming from "credible people".

However, he admitted that police drones launched to investigate could have caused "some level of confusion".

Mr York revealed that two drones found by police near the airport have now been ruled out of responsibility for the disruption which saw flights cancelled or diverted.

Despite searches of 26 potential sites, he said: "I don't think we have found the drone responsible."

But he said he was "absolutely certain that there was a drone flying throughout the period that the airport was closed".

Highlighted in bold some important quotes.

If you have ever been on the wrong side of an investigation by the police you'll probably find the comments laughable and all too common.

Ill still stand by my assertion that the authorities escalated this incident via means of incompetence and internal pressures. The arrest came via a very Terry Pratchett means of policing i.e. someone has to be guilty of something.

 Peregrine wrote:

(Which, BTW, kind of shuts down any idea of drones as some kind of sophisticated act of terrorism. The threat isn't from someone buying a drone off ebay and putting a small bomb on it, it's from terrorists building DIY cruise missiles loaded with hundreds of pounds of explosives.)

You reckon? I would have thought a terrorist group capable of building something as sophisticated as a missile would not have been overly hampered by the guidance system for it. Even unguided if they could build missiles capable of carrying hundreds of pounds of explosives and had the desire to use them they could do massive amounts of damage over a major city.

Ill still stand by my assertion that the authorities escalated this incident via means of incompetence and internal pressures

reminds one of :

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/9066337/CCTV-police-officer-chased-himself-after-being-mistaken-for-burglar.html

CCTV police officer 'chased himself' after being mistaken for burglar
An undercover police officer "chased himself round the streets" for 20 minutes after a CCTV operator mistook him for suspect.

The junior officer, who has not been named, was monitoring an area hit by a series of burglaries in an unnamed market town in the country’s south.

As the probationary officer from Sussex Police searched for suspects, the camera operator radioed that he had seen someone “acting suspiciously” in the area.

But he failed to realise that it was actually the plain-clothed officer he was watching on the screen, according to details leaked to an industry magazine.

The operator directed the officer, who was on foot patrol, as he followed the "suspect" on camera last month, telling his colleague on the ground that he was "hot on his heels".

The officer spent around 20 minutes giving chase before a sergeant came into the CCTV control room, recognised the “suspect” and laughed hysterically at the mistake.

I expect a lot of people will get sued by that couple, including the police. I mean, they (someone with the police) released the names of the couple before they had anything to go on, after all.

Why settle for just the newspapers when you can get some of that Government money too?

No, the press got the names from the neighbours.

It was just that the tabloids thought it fitting to publish those names prior to any corroboration, while the "broadsheets" didn't.

They will be hoist by their own petard, as Shakespeare would put it.

I find it funny, today i read in a swiss newspaper that the airport in Zürich begins to plan anti drone meassures.

I am however wondering why nothing happened or was planned sooner.

Seems often the case authorities/officials find it difficult to justify spending money on precautionary measures against hypothetical problems and no one wants to stick their neck out. Once a problem does occur then they can put things in place without having to make much of a case or worry they’ll be accused of wasting money.

If you were even more cynical, you may think that officials only get kudos for ‘doing something’ and sorting out a high profile problem, they don’t get a pack on the back for putting measures in place to stop something happening in the first place because there’s no publicity in it. So they don’t bother fighting that battle because if they’re right problems are prevented from ever appearing and they don’t get any kudos.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Seems often the case authorities/officials find it difficult to justify spending money on precautionary measures against hypothetical problems and no one wants to stick their neck out. Once a problem does occur then they can put things in place without having to make much of a case or worry they’ll be accused of wasting money.

Tbh airport Zürich has other problems, mostly with the germans.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

(Which, BTW, kind of shuts down any idea of drones as some kind of sophisticated act of terrorism. The threat isn't from someone buying a drone off ebay and putting a small bomb on it, it's from terrorists building DIY cruise missiles loaded with hundreds of pounds of explosives.)

You reckon? I would have thought a terrorist group capable of building something as sophisticated as a missile would not have been overly hampered by the guidance system for it. Even unguided if they could build missiles capable of carrying hundreds of pounds of explosives and had the desire to use them they could do massive amounts of damage over a major city.

Think even easier. I don't want to go too much into details (I know far too much about what exactly would be involved, and could probably build it) but you don't even need sophisticated missiles. It would be fairly easy to turn a $50,000 small plane into a DIY cruise missile capable of carrying 500+ pounds of explosives. No suicidal martyrs required, just convert a swarm of missiles and send them off to kill people. TBH the bomb itself is the hardest part, getting enough explosives to build one without your DIY chemistry lab turning into a smoking crater. The fact that we aren't seeing this kind of attack is pretty strong evidence that the people we're dealing with are a bunch of idiots with a desire for martyrdom and not much else. As is the fact that we're even talking about the "threat" of putting an improvised bomb on an ebay drone and hoping to maybe kill a person or two through sheer blind luck.

The IRA carried out many large bombings, either Islamic radicals just don’t have the competency or we really have become better at preventing and detecting the acquisition of explosive materials.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
The IRA carried out many large bombings, either Islamic radicals just don’t have the competency or we really have become better at preventing and detecting the acquisition of explosive materials.

Guns are easier to get and smuggle and a mass shooting can get a body count as good as a back back bomb. The cold math and economics of terrorism dictates a few assault weapons, a couple clips each and a few nuts willing to die are cheaper and easier to set up than a few dozen kilos of explosives that will get about as high a body count.

Horrible yet logical.

Also, IRA terrorists wefe less willing to commit suicidal attacks than Muslim terrorists as facts clearly prove, making suicide attack mass shootings unfeasible for the IRA but quite available to Muslim terrorists. .

Yet other than car and knife attacks, we have had several suicide bombers (7/7, Manchester and several high profile prevented) and no terror mass shooters in the UK because it’s just not that easy to get ‘a few assault weapons’ in the UK, I don’t think you understand the difference in cultures.

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Seems often the case authorities/officials find it difficult to justify spending money on precautionary measures against hypothetical problems and no one wants to stick their neck out. Once a problem does occur then they can put things in place without having to make much of a case or worry they’ll be accused of wasting money.

Tbh airport Zürich has other problems, mostly with the germans.

Can you elaborate please?

 Techpriestsupport wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Seems often the case authorities/officials find it difficult to justify spending money on precautionary measures against hypothetical problems and no one wants to stick their neck out. Once a problem does occur then they can put things in place without having to make much of a case or worry they’ll be accused of wasting money.

Tbh airport Zürich has other problems, mostly with the germans.

Can you elaborate please?

Issues with noise, they don't want us to expand it. Tbh how they (EU/germany and other neighbours treat us atm) we should just expand it anyways at this point.

I was actually affected by this and forced to land in freaking Shannon Ireland (basically in the middle of no where). I salvaged my trip by driving to Dublin in a rental car then getting a super cheap flight to east midlands airport a few days later.

So despite the best efforts of the 12 year old flying a drone and shutting down the 2nd largest airport in all of Europe for over a day....I made it to Nottingham and got to see Warhammer World - which was REALLY awesome.

More on point...This is a huge joke and all the authorities should be embarrassed. The "What would happen if we missed the drone? and the bullets fell on somebody" OMG...9mm round falling from the sky at 500 M or more hits with the force of a large piece of hail...Meanwhile millions of dollars are being lost by all the parties involved - not to mention the ruining of hundreds of peoples vacations. I can't say this for sure but my gut instinct is that if this happened in the US...Authorities would be thrilled to shoot a drone out of the sky and wouldn't even hesitate given the chance. A chance open fire on an actual aircraft? You'd even have civilians participating...

1st Para, I felt a "twinge" of sympathy (I've had FAR worse)

2nd Para, I really thought "Yay for Xeno! Happy!"

3rd Para, it kind of felt like you got your junk out and smeared it all over the inside of my forearms without me knowing ...

I am unsure which orkmote to choose ...

 War Drone wrote:
1st Para, I felt a "twinge" of sympathy (I've had FAR worse)

2nd Para, I really thought "Yay for Xeno! Happy!"

3rd Para, it kind of felt like you got your junk out and smeared it all over the inside of my forearms without me knowing ...

I am unsure which orkmote to choose ...

It wasn't that bad because I had a lot of fun in Dublin. Still a huge pain.

Saw some pictures in the paper with English soldiers would shoulder mounted rocket launchers patrolling an airport...Like seriously - you don't need that kind of firepower LOL. Had some laughs at a pub with some nice guys from England showing a video of a drone being destroyed flying over a football match via a roll of toliet paper. Sorry for disgusting you in such a way but do you really think it's reasonable that a 1500 dollar remote controlled aircraft should be shutting down large international airports?

Yeah, I don't see why it couldn't be shot down with bird shot. Millions of rounds a year are shot off into the sky for clay pigeon, and for shooting, and no-one gets hurt except the occasional beater.

I reckon shotties would be fine if you had a suitable target ...
D'you 'ave a suitable target?

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Yeah, I don't see why it couldn't be shot down with bird shot. Millions of rounds a year are shot off into the sky for clay pigeon, and for shooting, and no-one gets hurt except the occasional beater.

Range, probably. I don't know about this specific case, but you can put a drone in the approach/departure paths while still being too high for bird shot.

Honestly I think it;s only a matter of time before a civilian drone is used in a more serious incident.

I mean even without thinking hard at all you can see what could be done with them. Dropping a small incendiary charge on a building roof or releasing a mysterious powder into the intakes of a buildings ventilation system are just two possibilities it takes zero time and effort to see happening. And before some idiot says I'm encouraging terrorism, don't be stupid. Anyone with any negative inclination and the intelligence to operate a drone would think of those in a minute.You can bet a lot of people already have.

I'm sure we'll see drone regulations, penalties, prison sentences, coming soon. Meanwhile the state, of course, will give itself carte' blanche to do whatever it wants with drones while criminalizing defending yourself from them.

And remember we've already had one case in America where an american citizen on american soil was killed by a drone in the use of law enforcement.