• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Drone Mischief (Harassment; Crime; Pranks; Etc.)

Have airports in the UK ever been closed before due to drone sightings in the vicinity ?
 
Chief Constable of Sussex: Some of the drone sightings may have been police drones looking for other drones.


jiFfM.jpg
 
Yes, saw that reported on the BBC. So the Police sent up drones to look for the original (non-existent) drones and the sighting of the Police drones by people at the airport kept the airport closed.

Brilliant. Even Spike Milligan couldn't have written anything better.
 
There are a number of very-odd factors in this case.

Gatwick (in common with many major passenger airports) has comprehensive ground radar systems, which are primarily intended to deconflict aircraft whilst taxying after landing/ before takeoff, and also to monitor vehicles *and helicopters* that are in nap hover during heli-taxi approach/departure from terminals.

This coverage will extend to some distance beyond the runway thresholds, and certainly include key perimeter tracks. For the avoidance of doubt, this is capable of showing something less than the size of a person (so a large bird or a drone would be detected). There are also other forms of edge sensors, using different detection technologies, all of which combine with ground safety radars to give an integrated low/mid airspace situational monitor capability.

I emphasise this aspect, since this capability is in addition to the conventional standoff long-range radar covering the Approach/Departure glide-path or regional remote navigation/detection areas.

Either there are undisclosed operational reasons why the authorities are not mentioning sensor detection of these alleged drones, in confirmation of their existence, or: there is something else very strange going on.
 
Two drones flying near Newark Liberty International Airport led to a full stop on all flights. The airport, also known as EWR, serves the greater New York City area.
Federal Aviation Administration officials said all flights bound to Newark were halted on Tuesday evening, after two UAVs were spotted flying nearby.

The drones were sighted about 3,500 feet over Teterboro Airport In New Jersey, a small airport about 17 miles north of Newark Liberty that handles private planes, the agency said. After the sighting, takeoffs from Newark were halted and inbound planes were held in the air.


https://boingboing.net/2019/01/22/newark-airport-halted-all-flig.html
 
Two drones flying near Newark Liberty International Airport led to a full stop on all flights. The airport, also known as EWR, serves the greater New York City area.
Federal Aviation Administration officials said all flights bound to Newark were halted on Tuesday evening, after two UAVs were spotted flying nearby.


The drones were sighted about 3,500 feet over Teterboro Airport In New Jersey, a small airport about 17 miles north of Newark Liberty that handles private planes, the agency said. After the sighting, takeoffs from Newark were halted and inbound planes were held in the air.

https://boingboing.net/2019/01/22/newark-airport-halted-all-flig.html
Please drones can't go that high even the hi end ones.
 
Please drones can't go that high even the hi end ones.

It's possible (with a hideously expensive top of the range drone). Several can handle 1000m (3300 feet) - one can allegedly handle 6000m!

The maximum height allowed in the US by the FAA is 400 feet. Drone control software, AFAIK, usually limits the drone's altitude to within this limit.

The article doesn't say how the "drones" were spotted - if they were visually spotted by a pilot I'd imagine a drone would be either moving by so fast as to be a blur or a distant white dot - so they could equally have been white birds or weather balloons or bird crap on the cockpit windscreen, upgraded to drone status by the Heathrow panic.
 
Or is it? Something's going on, but what? Man claims home plagued by midnight drone pests
Police are appealing for help finding the person flying drones in Brandon in the middle of the night.
A man has told police how his home was plagued by drones that hit his windows and interfered with his hearing aid in the middle of the night.
The first incident was reported on Saturday, March 2 by the man, whose home is in the Mayday Farm area of Brandon.
He told police the drone flew so close to his home it struck his windows, and also interfered with his hearing device and affected the television signal. At the weekend he said he saw about six drones.
Police said the man usually heard the drones from around 10pm onwards, sometimes until 3.30am the following morning. No other complaints from other members of the public have been made at this stage.
 
Or is it? Something's going on, but what? Man claims home plagued by midnight drone pests
Police are appealing for help finding the person flying drones in Brandon in the middle of the night.
A man has told police how his home was plagued by drones that hit his windows and interfered with his hearing aid in the middle of the night.
The first incident was reported on Saturday, March 2 by the man, whose home is in the Mayday Farm area of Brandon.
He told police the drone flew so close to his home it struck his windows, and also interfered with his hearing device and affected the television signal. At the weekend he said he saw about six drones.
Police said the man usually heard the drones from around 10pm onwards, sometimes until 3.30am the following morning. No other complaints from other members of the public have been made at this stage.
Open window. Let drone in. Close window.

Claw hammer.
 
Or is it? Something's going on, but what? Man claims home plagued by midnight drone pests
Police are appealing for help finding the person flying drones in Brandon in the middle of the night.
A man has told police how his home was plagued by drones that hit his windows and interfered with his hearing aid in the middle of the night.
The first incident was reported on Saturday, March 2 by the man, whose home is in the Mayday Farm area of Brandon.
He told police the drone flew so close to his home it struck his windows, and also interfered with his hearing device and affected the television signal. At the weekend he said he saw about six drones.
Police said the man usually heard the drones from around 10pm onwards, sometimes until 3.30am the following morning. No other complaints from other members of the public have been made at this stage.
I'm good fiends with someone who lives in Brandon, I'll be sending this link to him to ask if he's heard anything about this, cheers.
 
No other complaints from other members of the public have been made at this stage.
The competence of this complaint must be open to question. Sorry, but this sounds so extreme as to almost self-cancel.

Designs already exist of 4"/100mm diameter pipe-shaped compressed-air launchers, containing string-mesh nets edged by weighted balls (say 3ft/metres square) that will take-down drones from hundreds of yards away.

I would love to see the effect upon a drone of say a tight beamed megawatt of radiofrequency energy from a magnetron.

A mate of mine moved to Brandon a few years back,
Book 'm, Dano. If he has no alibi, and a crick in the neck, then I think we've got our man.
 
It would be very helpful to learn the complainant's exact location. The Mayday Farm area lies in the middle of multiple towns, airfields, and the Stanford Training Area, and it's not densely settled.

It may be that the single complainant is located so as to be the only person who's close to the drone activity.
 
I'd also like to know if the complainant's claimed observation of six drones at a time occurred at night or in the daytime. The report indicates the incidents occur mainly during nighttime hours, but it doesn't clearly state they've occurred only during nighttime hours.

Nighttime drone use implies infrared or night vision support - perhaps from a camera mounted on the drone. The associated comm link back to the controller would explain both the bumbling behavior (hitting the windows) and the electronic interference.
 
Good point ... That bothered me, too. I can't imagine how difficult it would be to control a group of 6 drones at night.
 
This story is charcterised by perhaps both its poor reporting and the sheer improbability of scenario.
 
I hate drones. About every time I've been on a beautiful, serene mountain top in the last few years I've been bugged by one of these whining, buzzing atrocities.
 
Good point ... That bothered me, too. I can't imagine how difficult it would be to control a group of 6 drones at night.

Controlling 6 drones is easy and according to this video so is controlling 1,374.

 
Controlling 6 drones is easy and according to this video so is controlling 1,374.

It's easy if and only if the drones are under automated control. I doubt the alleged Mayday Farm drone operators had the benefit of such automated support.


SIDE NOTE: I'm surprised no one's yet cracked a joke about "Mayday Farm", especially since this involves an aerial mishap.
 
A man has told police how his home was plagued by drones that hit his windows and interfered with his hearing aid in the middle of the night.

This awakens my old investigatory instincts.

My theory? His hearing aid is malfunctioning or has been poorly adjusted. He’s hearing noises and inferring drones.

References to “seeing” six drones are being interpolated by the hack.

maximus otter
 
Back
Top