Attack Drone????

[Hai-Lee]

As I am typing this there is a continuous reporting of troubles incurred at Gatwick airport due to the irresponsible or criminally deliberate operation of Drones.

The idea of shooting them down was apparently discounted because of the possibility of the projectiles causing unintended collateral damage. Now they have the military experts looking into what can be done to stop such incidents closing airports, how to bring the drones down, and how to trace the offenders who are facing serious Jail time.

So what ideas do the forum users have that could make a good "Hunter/Killer" Drone?

The way I would bring one down is with a drone that could either drop or fire a strong mesh over the drone, a bit like a hand cast fishing net. I have never seen a drone with its props entangled that has even been able to maintain flight or much of anything other than dropping like a stone.

A secondary solution is to generate MASSIVE and Broad spectrum interference causing the drone to RTB. Great for tracing the offenders if the H/K drone has HR video coupled to a recording system.

Any other ideas or possible solutions?

Just a few thoughts!

Have fun!

 

[ElectriSean]

I remember seeing a video awhile ago about a net gun designed to take down drones, it seemed to work well. Massive interference could work, but as you know not all RC links operate in the same band, and the most common (2.4GHz) is heavily used by other things as well. You would need to flood the entire band because of the way frequency hopping works, which would definitely cause problems with other services. That still leaves 75MHz, 433MHz, 868/915MHz etc. To do something truly broad spectrum would cause even more problems with other services.

IMO the best option is the net gun, as you know pretty much exactly where it's going to go - straight down. I'm also not opposed to using firearms as long as the trajectory is clear. If you're dumb or malevolent enough to disrupt an airport you deserve what you get

 

[sprzout]

As I am typing this there is a continuous reporting of troubles incurred at Gatwick airport due to the irresponsible or criminally deliberate operation of Drones.

The idea of shooting them down was apparently discounted because of the possibility of the projectiles causing unintended collateral damage. Now they have the military experts looking into what can be done to stop such incidents closing airports, how to bring the drones down, and how to trace the offenders who are facing serious Jail time.

So what ideas do the forum users have that could make a good "Hunter/Killer" Drone?

The way I would bring one down is with a drone that could either drop or fire a strong mesh over the drone, a bit like a hand cast fishing net. I have never seen a drone with its props entangled that has even been able to maintain flight or much of anything other than dropping like a stone.

A secondary solution is to generate MASSIVE and Broad spectrum interference causing the drone to RTB. Great for tracing the offenders if the H/K drone has HR video coupled to a recording system.

Any other ideas or possible solutions?

Just a few thoughts!

Have fun!

Go low tech. Get a leaf blower, a paint roller, and some ribbon on a roll. Fire the ribbon into the sky; the drone's props will get tangled and instant down.

 

[Hai-Lee]

As for a ground launched system I tend to lean towards a series of Mortars each loaded with "Canister". As the drone flies over it it is fired and the little lead balls in the canister charge SHRED IT! Effective to a few hundred meters!

But then I do like LOUD noises

Have fun!

 

[JTarmstr]

I always thought a brief flood of noise at frequency would work, you just have to put the quad into failsafe. Another idea would be to have one of these patrolling, I heard the Navy is getting rid of them.

Of course that would fry every cellphone at the airport and the radar arrays.

Just to list off a few more: Peregrine falcons, Air to Air drones with net guns, shotguns with bird shot, ground based net gun, some way to find his FPV feed and jam it (i dont think it swaps frequencies correct?).

 

[ElectriSean]

I always thought a brief flood of noise at frequency would work, you just have to put the quad into failsafe. Another idea would be to have one of these patrolling, I heard the Navy is getting rid of them.

Of course that would fry every cellphone at the airport and the radar arrays.

Just to list off a few more: Peregrine falcons, Air to Air drones with net guns, shotguns with bird shot, ground based net gun, some way to find his FPV feed and jam it (i dont think it swaps frequencies correct?).

Just putting it into failsafe isn't really enough, as receivers recover quickly. If the drone does RTH on failsafe it could be useful to get a bearing on the location of the pilot, but you can't just jam a specific frequency, you have to do the whole band because the protocols hop around many times a second.

If the drone is using analog FPV it wouldn't be hard to jam, but it still has it's autonomous modes, and is probably using those. From what I understand this is a large commercial drone, so it's probably fairly sophisticated. XJet did a video on this, he had a good idea - fly a mini quad into it

 

[kilroy07]

Hopefully police can apprehend this idiot!
They may have to wait until the douche uploads the video to youtube though!

The worst is the legislators who will use this as a talking point to get "drones" outlawed... Sigh...

Maybe local honest hobbyist can reach out tot he authorities and help nab this jerk.

Attending FF earlier this year, I thought... what if your plane trailed fishing line (like lots of it!) it would get tangled in everyone's props and bring them down.... I guess what I'm saying is the best defense against an bad drone is probably a good drone....
(that argument works for conceal carry as well.)

 

[Hai-Lee]

I am showing my age in this but in my youth we would have a "Talk" with this fool and afterwards drop him off at emergency to have his fingers reattached!

Brainless idiots and drones should be mutually exclusive!! Sadly having a great deal of money does not always correspond with great intelligence!

have fun!

 

[danbob]

MP talking about banning night flying now, not sure how that will help this sort of situation

 

[Hai-Lee]

MP talking about banning night flying now, not sure how that will help this sort of situation

Seriously it won't. The only thing it will help is his chances of being re-elected! The fools make the laws do not realize that even if they outlaw them the criminals will still have them and no one else! Here with our extremely restrictive gun laws the criminals and terrorists can still get them!

Have fun!

 

[FDS]

The perp has been identified as an eco protestor, not a hobbyist but using the drone or drones to disrupt air travel. The army has deployed some of its gear used to protect nuclear sub bases etc.
All the knee jerk crap calling for legislation is bad. Everything this fool has done is already illegal under UK law and carries up to 5 years in jail, none of which is deterring criminal users. Hobbyists are not the problem but will suffer when registration comes in next November, along with a test.
As we know politicians and the press love a new thing to blame for whatever problem hits the news, as it stops us remembering it’s usually THEM that caused or inflated the base issue in the first place! Why they didn’t just crash a faster quad into it or shot gun it to bits is beyond me, everything was already grounded.

The attack itself is quite clever when you break it down, essentially a DDOS attack for an airport. You overload the perimeter with multiple low level threats then the sheer volume of people and aircraft does the rest for you. With long range equipment and even a web connected 4g ground station you could fly it from anywhere, certainly outside the police cordon.

I just feel sorry for all those people whose holiday has been ruined just so some egotistical twat can make a blindingly obvious point that air travel is not good for the environment, ironically with equipment that probably came half way round the world and is full of toxic metals!

 

[Crazy Goats]

Assuming it was a phantom or inspire or something, I think you could grab a regular parkflyer foamie with FPV and ram the quad. It wouldn't harm the plane too much and foam planes are cheap anyway. If they were using a mini quad I suppose you would have a VERY hard time ramming it because most FPV cams wouldn't even pick it up till you were 10 feet away. But I don't think it was a miniquad anyway. The only issue I see is a delay in time between the sighting of the "drone" and the mobilizing of the FPV team.

 

[JTarmstr]

The perp has been identified as an eco protestor, not a hobbyist but using the drone or drones to disrupt air travel. The army has deployed some of its gear used to protect nuclear sub bases etc.
All the knee jerk crap calling for legislation is bad. Everything this fool has done is already illegal under UK law and carries up to 5 years in jail, none of which is deterring criminal users. Hobbyists are not the problem but will suffer when registration comes in next November, along with a test.
As we know politicians and the press love a new thing to blame for whatever problem hits the news, as it stops us remembering it’s usually THEM that caused or inflated the base issue in the first place! Why they didn’t just crash a faster quad into it or shot gun it to bits is beyond me, everything was already grounded.

The attack itself is quite clever when you break it down, essentially a DDOS attack for an airport. You overload the perimeter with multiple low level threats then the sheer volume of people and aircraft does the rest for you. With long range equipment and even a web connected 4g ground station you could fly it from anywhere, certainly outside the police cordon.

I just feel sorry for all those people whose holiday has been ruined just so some egotistical twat can make a blindingly obvious point that air travel is not good for the environment, ironically with equipment that probably came half way round the world and is full of toxic metals!

What I hate is that if it weren't for the media, this wouldn't be as bad of a problem, the news cycle in its search for the next scandalous reactionary piece chose drones and gave them a ton of coverage. Then their liberal lawmaker buddies who think more laws solve existing problems (look at California if you don't believe me), come in and make a bunch of ridiculous laws that benefit nobody and do nothing to stop the problem. The only people who suffer are the hobbyists. And meanwhile more people who didn't know about drones see it on the news and think "hmmm that's a good way to get attention I will use it to do [unknown]". And thus the problem is only compounded. If people would take a step back and instead be willing to punish those caught violating airspace laws and develop methods to deal with drones, the problem would disappear. Oh, and maybe require a certification to buy DJI drones (and similar capability drones) instead of all drones? Those things have to much capability to be able to be purchased off the shelf.

 

[cranialrectosis]

mobilizing of the FPV team

^^This^^

Call local hobbyists and issue a bounty for the take-down. Let the locals decide what works and let them compete for the booty. All government has to do is put out the word and let the competition begin.

No guns. No cops. No new laws that dorks like this wouldn't bother to listen to anyway. No mass blackouts of public wireless spectrum either. Just let the local 'privateers' protect the airspace they own.

Video required for the payment of the bounty to be shown on the local news. Show this nimrod's $5k copter being smoked by a $25 Tiny Trainer with a small trailing net (and a Jolly Roger logo) and end this insanity.

 

[Crazy Goats]

^^This^^

Video required for the payment of the bounty to be shown on the local news. Show this nimrod's $5k copter being smoked by a $25 Tiny Trainer with a small trailing net (and a Jolly Roger logo) and end this insanity.

Especially the Jolly Roger.

 

[JTarmstr]

^^This^^

Call local hobbyists and issue a bounty for the take-down. Let the locals decide what works and let them compete for the booty. All government has to do is put out the word and let the competition begin.

No guns. No cops. No new laws that dorks like this wouldn't bother to listen to anyway. No mass blackouts of public wireless spectrum either. Just let the local 'privateers' protect the airspace they own.

Video required for the payment of the bounty to be shown on the local news. Show this nimrod's $5k copter being smoked by a $25 Tiny Trainer with a small trailing net (and a Jolly Roger logo) and end this insanity.

Why a trainer? Take a FPV Arrow and scatter pieces of the quad over 4 counties.

 

[cranialrectosis]

Why a trainer? Take a FPV Arrow and scatter pieces of the quad over 4 counties.

The quad parts are booty. If I win the take-down, I get the parts!

High tech wins battles. Low tech wins wars. Done right you could make <> $3k with this one takedown...

 

[sprzout]

What I hate is that if it weren't for the media, this wouldn't be as bad of a problem, the news cycle in its search for the next scandalous reactionary piece chose drones and gave them a ton of coverage. Then their liberal lawmaker buddies who think more laws solve existing problems (look at California if you don't believe me), come in and make a bunch of ridiculous laws that benefit nobody and do nothing to stop the problem. The only people who suffer are the hobbyists. And meanwhile more people who didn't know about drones see it on the news and think "hmmm that's a good way to get attention I will use it to do [unknown]". And thus the problem is only compounded. If people would take a step back and instead be willing to punish those caught violating airspace laws and develop methods to deal with drones, the problem would disappear. Oh, and maybe require a certification to buy DJI drones (and similar capability drones) instead of all drones? Those things have to much capability to be able to be purchased off the shelf.

FAA already issued legislation for certification of drones. If you're using any drone over half a pound in weight, you're required to register it. If you do not have an AMA membership (the only currently accepted Community Based Organization right now) and you are flying a drone (or airplane) you're required to have part 107 certification. Now, all of that is only for the U.S., as far as I know; I don't know how they'll affect anything for the U.K.

As for shotguns, I'm a little leery of that. Lead goes up, lead has to come down. It's possible to hit a bystander with lead when trying to take down the drone, which is why I suggested ribbons that would get tangled in the props - if it hits a human, no harm no foul.

 

[JTarmstr]

The quad parts are booty. If I win the take-down, I get the parts!

The one problem is that i see something like this getting quite out of hand. Maybe in a situation with a guy who is flying around the airport repeatedly and the airport allows other hobbyists to knock him out of the sky. but otherwise even if it seems like a a quad is breaking the law you can still be liable for hitting his drone.

 

[DamoRC]

FAA already issued legislation for certification of drones. If you're using any drone over half a pound in weight, you're required to register it. If you do not have an AMA membership (the only currently accepted Community Based Organization right now) and you are flying a drone (or airplane) you're required to have part 107 certification. Now, all of that is only for the U.S., as far as I know; I don't know how they'll affect anything for the U.K.

As for shotguns, I'm a little leery of that. Lead goes up, lead has to come down. It's possible to hit a bystander with lead when trying to take down the drone, which is why I suggested ribbons that would get tangled in the props - if it hits a human, no harm no foul.

Regarding 107, I don't believe that this is the case (yet) . Although the 2018 FAA reauthotization act repeals the Special Rule for Model aircraft, no new regulations have been established or implemented yet.