Re: Gatwick drones

Dec 20, 2018 Last reply: 5 years ago 7 Replies

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Clive Page 7 years ago

Apparently, the police did consider shooting them down, but were worried about stray bullets. Perhaps they'll get a shotgun to use in future.

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That doesn't seem to inhibit them when they shoot at people in the streets, does it? I'm not criticising them for that, sometimes they have to shoot to incapacitate a potential killer.

But in an isolated rural area with almost no residents, they worry about stray bullets. Well. I rather think it was designed to give the impression that they really have seen one or more drones near enough that they could have fired at them. I'll believe that only if more evidence becomes available.

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Information here may be outdated?

Tim Watts 7 years ago

I would have thought a rubber bullet would have done a number on a drone without much other risk.

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whisky-dave 7 years ago

That is down to risk assemnent, do you NOT shoot and let the shooter keep shooting until they have killed someone else ?

Well they don't shoot people for parking at bus stops more's the pity ;-)

I'm not sure what sort of damage a bullet left on the tarmack would to to a plane landing or taking off at 100+ MPH woud do to a tyre or whether it'd be just ejected out at speed or gourge a whole in the runway.

I'm not even sure how easy it would be to shoot drones out of the sky at night. Then there's how many people with these skills you would need to employ, for 24/7 356 coverage at each airport.

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The Natural Philosopher 7 years ago

if it hit.

The problem is to have accuracy and stopping power at 200 meters without being still lethal at 2000...

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Jethro_uk 7 years ago

They're not rubber, you know.

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Tim Watts 7 years ago

Obviously... But they're rather less lethal than bullets. And they should still be able to damage a drone.

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newshound 7 years ago

Yes but, like a shotgun, effective range about 50 metres. These things are being sighted at ranges of a few hundred metres. Media is full of rubbish about being easy targets for "sharpshooters" with a Heckler & Koch. I'd have thought the answer was one of those kilowatt military lasers, carefully tied in with the air traffic control radar to make sure they don't blind a pilot a hundred miles out. Although I suspect that our military with their GHz technology honed first on IRA bombs and then on the middle east will get them sorted in no time.

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