BS: Drones

Subject: RE: BS: Drones
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 25 Dec 18 - 08:29 AM

If we are going to have a conspiracy theory, that's as good as any - alien beings who have advanced technology to prevent them being photographed. They are probably in league with Trump or the Russians or, possibly, both.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Drones
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Dec 18 - 06:57 AM

I suppose they count as Unidentified Flying Objects.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 25 Dec 18 - 03:15 AM

Someone reading this forum tells someone one at work "I read on the internet that ...", who tells a bloke in the pub, who tells his wife, who informs her WattsApp group, who discuss it on Facebook. It MUST be true - it was on the internet.

Drip, drip, drip.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Drones
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 24 Dec 18 - 04:32 PM

Unsubstantiated speculation such as this can lead to the persecution of innocent people.

Nonsense, Doug. These people, already named in the press, will be persecuted by idiots regardless of any speculation. Comments on a minority interest forum will not make a ha'purth of difference.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones
From: Senoufou
Date: 24 Dec 18 - 02:16 PM

I second that Iains!
A very Happy Christmas to all on Mudcat!
Eliza

Subject: RE: BS: Drones
From: Iains
Date: 24 Dec 18 - 01:57 PM

Ground Control to made up drone:
Happy Christmas everyone.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 24 Dec 18 - 12:07 PM

And now I read Suggestion that drone did not exist down to 'poor communications'

Subject: RE: BS: Drones
From: Mr Red
Date: 24 Dec 18 - 12:04 PM

All the techy guff that Rob Naylor suggests - begs the question. Anyone that proficient, must have ulterior motives.

And without any claims of responsibility for the PR, can we look eastwards to St Petersburg ?

Hardly assassinations, or rigging elections, now is it? But anyone bold enough to try those would not hesitate throw spanner in the Brexshit news as a smoke screen, to ensure completion of the job they started.

Call me a fantasist all you want, ya can't exclude the buggers until you have a visible culprit. All bets are off.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 24 Dec 18 - 09:33 AM

Oops! Hit the submit button by accident. To continue ......

Today's Daily Telegraph reports that:-

The couple were last night under police protection at their home in Crawley, with a marked police car parked outside the property.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Drones
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 24 Dec 18 - 09:25 AM

If the alibi is false, the employer will be prosecuted too and go to jail with the droners.....

       - : -


Could be that the two arrested may have been the culprits but have either done some sort of deal or it was something to do with a government department......

Unsubstantiated speculation such as this can lead to the persecution of innocent people.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones
From: Senoufou
Date: 24 Dec 18 - 08:28 AM

Do you know Dave, I've been thinking along those lines too. There's something more to this than they're letting on.
Either they're so inept and ineffectual that the situation is/was entirely beyond their control, or it was far more sinister and they can't tell us more for security reasons.
Time will tell I suppose.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 24 Dec 18 - 08:08 AM

Could be that the two arrested may have been the culprits but have either done some sort of deal or it was something to do with a government department. Hence the no drone comment.

Just to kick off a conspiracy theory :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Drones
From: Senoufou
Date: 24 Dec 18 - 07:18 AM

Ah Jon, I think you may be right. It's probably going to have a lot of security there from now on.

The problem is, if there are delays for safety reasons, the whole pack of cards comes tumbling down, as he'll miss all his connecting flights.

This happened a couple of years ago with those wretched French Air Traffic Controllers. A brilliant KLM lady at Norwich found him an alternative flight and saved his bacon. We were nearly in tears with relief!

Subject: RE: BS: Drones
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 24 Dec 18 - 06:27 AM

Thanks for the info, Rob.

Sen, Gatwick may well be the best "prepared" airport we have at the moment...

Subject: RE: BS: Drones
From: Senoufou
Date: 24 Dec 18 - 06:21 AM

Hahahaha Backwoodsman! I think Bullshire Airport is best avoided. :)

He used to fly to Amsterdam from Norwich Airport, and thence to Paris CDG, to reach Abidjan, but we found it's much cheaper for him to get a taxi to Gatwick and go via Lisbon. Not keen on him going anywhere near blooming Gatwick now, but he's already bought and paid for the tickets.

BoboDioulasso in Burkina Faso is probably quite safe (and sounds like the first line of a song!) He then crosses the border into northern Cote d'Ivoire on the back of a moped, to access his ancestral village of Nafamadougou.
I used to worry about his safety in these far-flung parts, but now I'm concerned about him setting foot in Gatwick! Ironic.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 24 Dec 18 - 06:10 AM

Don't let him fly from Bullshire Airport, Sen! ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Drones
From: Senoufou
Date: 24 Dec 18 - 06:00 AM

I agree Rob. It's bound to have put ideas in the heads of no end of different factions/youngsters/idiots/terrorists.
We can no doubt expect more incidents like this.

Husband has to take several flights to Africa next summer (already booked) from Gatwick-Lisbon-Abidjan-BoboDioulassou and back again. I shan't be at ease while he's travelling.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 24 Dec 18 - 05:56 AM

Will Fly: The drones were stopped by the military using specialist equipment - Israeli in origin, I do believe - which uses radar to take control of the drone and probably track the origin of the controlling signal.

They don't need a controlling signal. We use a number of freeware applications that allow a user to pre-load a flight plan into a UAV. Once it takes off, it then becomes "fire and forget" and will execute its mission entirely autonomously. Battery life is the main issue.

You can easily modify on-board electronics to that the mission could be uploaded via mobile phone from hundreds of miles away.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 24 Dec 18 - 05:50 AM

Sen: Police are now saying there is a possibility that 'there never was a drone'. Gawd, what an absolute mess this has been! Whatever is going on?

I guess a malicious person or group could cause the same disruption without a drone at all simply by phoning in (from "burner" phones) supposed sightings?

There are other reports that a damaged drone has been found.

I suspect the police are putting out somewhat contradictory information to muddy the waters about what lines of investigation they're following.

Whether this was real or not, we can expect more incidents of a similar nature....probably many more!

Subject: RE: BS: Drones
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 24 Dec 18 - 05:46 AM

Mr Red: in my experience GPS that is commercially available is barely accurate enough to taunt at the control tower window.

Not at all correct. We use UAVs with RTK GNSS which are accurate to centimetres. We use "Mission Planner" to programme autonomous flights for our 1.5 metre wide drones along flight lines which are only 1 metre apart. They successfully navigate a whole swathe of lines of this separation to, usually, within 20 cm of the pre-plotted lines.

There is a range limitation on this though, of a few km, subject to the radio link range for the RTK correction.

For other applications we use PPP (Precise Point Positioning) DGNSS (I call it GNSS rather than GPS because even many lower-end commercial systems now combine US GPS, Russian Glonass, Chinese Beidou and, soon, EU Galileo into a single "best solution). The corrections for this mode of operation use global networks of stations to calculate corrections and transmit via satellite to the receiver. These systems are typically accurate to within 1-2 metres in a dynamic environment. Much better in a static environment.

As far back as 1986 I assisted in re-triangulating a bunch of points in northern Brazil using the 25 minutes of 4 satellite coverage per day then available with GPS. We were getting precisions of +/- 2mm plus 1 part per million of the baseline distance between stations, even over 30 years ago. That's better than 20 cm relative positioning over a 150km baseline distance.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones
From: Senoufou
Date: 24 Dec 18 - 05:45 AM

Police are now saying there is a possibility that 'there never was a drone'. Gawd, what an absolute mess this has been! Whatever is going on?

Subject: RE: BS: Drones
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 24 Dec 18 - 05:31 AM

Steve Shaw: You can't shoot them down, you can't net them. Too dangerous. But you can bet your life that there's technology that won't let them fly where we don't want them flying and/or that can take over the controlling of them. And no, you can't have your bloody ball back.

There is "geofencing" technology available, and used in many off-the-shelf drones, to prevent them coming within a specified distance of a specified location. But this is easily overcome. And it's very easy to self-build a UAV controller that doesn't incorporate geofencing. My own company does it. Taking over control is not straightforward either....not that it would be much use with an autonomous drone.

Jon Freeman: I’m more interested in drones that can follow a flight path autonomously. Perhaps I’m missing something but it looks to me as if one, even with consumer grade stuff, could say program a drone to say make a short flight, circle round a target area a few times to get attention and return to base without the need for any communication between drone and base. I guess that if this method is possible, it would render any jamming technology useless? Or perhaps they could knock out the GPS signals it would need?

Yes, absolutely. Freely available software such as "Mission Planner" allows you to upload a pre-programmed flight path into a UAV which it will follow without any need for an external controller. We use this all the time to fly aerial survey missions looking for unexploded ordnance (aka explosive remnants of war) in areas of conflict.

Jamming GPS signals is possible, but not selectively....you'd have to jam over a significant area, causing a major issues to other applications using GNSS....not least to aircraft!

Subject: RE: BS: Drones
From: Iains
Date: 24 Dec 18 - 04:49 AM

In God we trust, all others must bring data!

Subject: RE: BS: Drones
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Dec 18 - 04:41 AM

Well bugger me sideways with a bent banana. Can somebody please tell me how, after all that disruption over three days, there is NO VIDEO FOOTAGE WHATSOEVER of the alleged "drone attacks"??

Subject: RE: BS: Drones
From: Iains
Date: 24 Dec 18 - 04:05 AM

An interesting read on drones and stopping them.

https://www.popularmechanics.com/flight/drones/a25653640/gatwick-drones-disable-deterrence/

Subject: RE: BS: Drones
From: Iains
Date: 24 Dec 18 - 03:39 AM

Does it make any sense that the police are in charge of airbourne threats around a major airport? Days of chaos and no video evidence?

Wargaming a little contretemps in preparation for hard brexit perhaps?

Subject: RE: BS: Drones
From: Jack Campin
Date: 23 Dec 18 - 04:29 PM

The police are now saying the drones may have been imaginary. One crashed one was found early on, but there is no photographic record of them: only people reporting that they'd seen them.

Massive economic disruption caused by panic about imaginary enemies? That couldn't possibly happen in Britain, could it?

(Someone posted a video to FB of a football match in Argentina where one of the spectators brought down a drone with a well-aimed toilet roll. Just think, if Argentina had had toilet paper in the 1980s the Malvinas would be theirs).

Subject: RE: BS: Drones
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 23 Dec 18 - 03:59 PM

Twat. It's either clotted cream or it's nothing.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 23 Dec 18 - 03:56 PM

I enjoyed mince pies with custard for pudding today!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Drones
From: Iains
Date: 23 Dec 18 - 09:16 AM

It is being reported that the two prime suspects have been released.
The fiasco is not finished yet.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones
From: Iains
Date: 23 Dec 18 - 07:01 AM

in my experience GPS that is commercially available is barely accurate enough to taunt at the control tower window.

Depending on what equipment is used and the order of accuracy required the precision of GPS equipment can be very high. A total station is accurate within 3mm. Static and RTK techniques are the most accurate forms of GPS. With high order static techniques, relative positions of a few millimetres are possible over hundreds of kilometres.
   A mobile phone has an accuracy to 5-8 meters. It can be combined with an external Bluetooth GPS receiver and get accuracy down to the 2-3 meter range

I am sure governments retain the ability to degrade the accuracy should the need arise. I assume that would also require the cellphone towers to be taken out as well, as their positions are known and triangulation would give a general location down to several typical city blocks. (I suspect that this is an inaccuracy deliberately put out by the authorities, but I do not have the knowledge to dispute it)

Subject: RE: BS: Drones
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 23 Dec 18 - 06:46 AM

Arrff, arrff, arrff... :-) :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Drones
From: Senoufou
Date: 23 Dec 18 - 05:59 AM

Steve! We're waiting for you at the Mudcat Tavern! Mmario has suggested you oversee the catering as you sound like an excellent chef. And please bring some of those turkeys for everyone to taste. See you there I hope!
PS Agree about the doorknob.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 23 Dec 18 - 05:46 AM

I don't believe in banning things. Drones have their place. Collective punishment is wrong. My sense of injustice in that department was fired up in 1967 when our whole class of 30 was kept in detention until 5.30 because no-one would own up to the theft of a doorknob. All I know is that it bloody well wasn't me. Bloody priest. Had I found the doorknob I know where I'd have shoved it.

Dave, the Morrisons Nero d'Avola has been two for a tenner for a while. Excellent! By the time you read this I'll be in that hellhole collecting my Kelly Bronze turkeys. I'll need a lie down after that.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones
From: Senoufou
Date: 23 Dec 18 - 05:33 AM

The Crown Prosecution Service will require a cast-iron case if the couple are to go to Court. If the alibi is false, the employer will be prosecuted too and go to jail with the droners.

There were a couple of Ghanaian men on the TV who had intended to go to their brother's wedding, and had missed it. This is very serious for Africans, to miss a major family event like that.

And the poor terminally ill woman had wanted to see her family for the last time before she died. I found that terribly sad.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones
From: Mr Red
Date: 23 Dec 18 - 05:28 AM

in my experience GPS that is commercially available is barely accurate enough to taunt at the control tower window. The people they have arrested have alibis from employer and ex wifey. Age of children not specified! The plot thickens........


Lots of potholes, though.

I was told that California had fixed them, when I told the story of Reaganomics leading to road problems to on American. Maybe his story was history (and full of holes)...........




I'll get my high viz jacket

Subject: RE: BS: Drones
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 22 Dec 18 - 05:45 PM

Not to downgrade in any way the seriousness of this thread, but can I just say, I love drones! No' the type you're talking about, but what I can do with my bass notes on my box! And there have been several positive sightings of drones at Inverness airport, if you happen to follow Facebook, usually belonging to some teuchter's set o' pipes!
Sorry,I'll get ma plaidie!

Subject: RE: BS: Drones
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 22 Dec 18 - 05:19 PM

"Ok. so that (if enforced) takes care of drones sold to the public. What about drones created by members of the public, with computerised controls available online, which have not been fitted with this device?"

Nigel, the way I’d understood the (Daily Mail?) article I read was that the first system tried by the police failed as it only really dealt with “standard” drones from the largest maker. I believe the Israeli system was able to overcome this?

My guess it that wherever there is a “drone/base” communication, there would be some way of blocking that?

I’m more interested in drones that can follow a flight path autonomously. Perhaps I’m missing something but it looks to me as if one, even with consumer grade stuff, could say program a drone to say make a short flight, circle round a target area a few times to get attention and return to base without the need for any communication between drone and base. I guess that if this method is possible, it would render any jamming technology useless? Or perhaps they could knock out the GPS signals it would need?


This board available in the UK for about £130 (plus you’d need at least GPS) seems quite capable to me?

---
On a different tack. Any thoughts on the likes of Amazon possibly having large fleets of drones big enough to carry parcels in the sky? And if there are so many disabling techniques including netting, around, could we have "drone piracy"?

Subject: RE: BS: Drones
From: Joe Offer
Date: 22 Dec 18 - 01:53 PM

Steve Shaw says, I'll tell you summat. We've got schools begging parents for money, hospital waiting lists rocketing, A&E departments unable to cope, food bank dumps in every supermarket in the fifth biggest economy in the world, homelessness going through the roof as people die in the cold just outside Parliament, and most of the roads round here are full of last winter's potholes still. You never see a copper round here these days either. I mean, what sort of a bloody country is this when ordinary citizens' security and comfort and safety are ignored while our alleged leaders turn parliament into a pantomime as they "discuss" the disaster they instigated that is about to befall us? What do we pay these clowns for?

Gee, that sounds like California. Here's an article titled California now world’s 5th largest economy, surpassing UK

California has about half the population of the UK, and is about half again the size of the UK land mass. I see lots of drones in the retail stores of California, but very few in the air. Lots of potholes, though.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Drones
From: Senoufou
Date: 22 Dec 18 - 01:42 PM

I'm wondering if some terrorists could use drones around Westminster, landing on the roofs of various government buildings and causing havoc.
I suppose explosives could be attached and detonated from afar.
Any public building could be attacked in this way.
One surely can't have objects being flown anywhere at all by any evil-minded agent.
I've also read that one can have a drone already programmed, with no need to guide it remotely. A flying bomb in effect.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 22 Dec 18 - 01:29 PM

From: Jos - PM
Date: 22 Dec 18 - 12:25 PM
They said on the radio this morning that drones are sold with a device already installed that prevents them flying too close to airports; it causes them to land or to fly back to the person controlling them. They said that this must have been disabled by the people using the drones at Gatwick.

Ok. so that (if enforced) takes care of drones sold to the public. What about drones created by members of the public, with computerised controls available online, which have not been fitted with this device?

Subject: RE: BS: Drones
From: Mr Red
Date: 22 Dec 18 - 12:47 PM

Now, just a thought but if you had a UAV fly the length of the runway with jamming transmissions aimed in front of it. It would make the runway safe against single drone incidents. But a detected drone would still be a disruption because it would have to be removed.

The drone incident was an incident waiting to happen. We have had drones fall out of the sky onto babies in prams already. And FWIW there are laws already in place regarding photography pointing at a building that is not yours.

As for the miscreants - it needs a custodial sentence of some import to warn other idiots. It won't stop the determined though. Shops that sell don't offer advice on insurance, and insurance companies don't understand either, it needs an incident to raise the profile of the problems. Politicians are too busy playing politics, right now. And a few of them need custodial sentences.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones
From: Jos
Date: 22 Dec 18 - 12:25 PM

They said on the radio this morning that drones are sold with a device already installed that prevents them flying too close to airports; it causes them to land or to fly back to the person controlling them. They said that this must have been disabled by the people using the drones at Gatwick.

Having a law that makes all drones have a registration number would be as effective as the law that says all cars must have a visible registration number - it doesn't stop criminals using false or cloned number plates in order not to be identifiable.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones
From: Mr Red
Date: 22 Dec 18 - 12:23 PM

but tomatoes, in the Middle Ages? Probably not.

Pretty hard tomatoes and probably limestone in colour were not uncommon, in those days. And you couln't eat them neither. Blinded people were not uncommon either.


The problem with downing the drones is that they use Wifi frequencies. Downing the drones with radio tansmissions, also downs the networks. So no more Wifi connections for business use in future for airports systems then?

Culprits are 60 and 54 apparently. It was that they taunted the authorities that tells you - as GBS said "Older and wiser is not bound to not happen. Young fools become old fools."

Subject: RE: BS: Drones
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 22 Dec 18 - 12:02 PM

A man and a woman arrested? They weren't called Stephen Barclay and Theresa May were they? The lengths some people will go to to divert attention from their ineptitude.I

Doug, you can't fly cars above the runway at Gatport Airwick.

Steve, Steve, Steve! Far more important. Went to our local Italian eatery last night and they have changed their house red. An absolutely lovely Nero d'Avolo. Can't remember the name but at £4.50 for a 250ml glass it is dearer than Mozzers but good value in a restaurant.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones
From: Senoufou
Date: 22 Dec 18 - 11:06 AM

Cars are indeed dangerous Doug. But, as you suggest for drone-owners, one needs to take a test, have licencing and there are rules of the road to be obeyed. Each car is registered and identifiable.
It is illegal to carry a knife in public, but one can zoom a large drone overhead with impunity.

Backwoodsman, you have no idea just how hard I can be. My pupils were absolutely terrified of me I can tell you. And as for my poor little husband, he cowers in fear most of the time.

Heh heh. If only...   :)

Subject: RE: BS: Drones
From: Will Fly
Date: 22 Dec 18 - 10:29 AM

The drones were stopped by the military using specialist equipment - Israeli in origin, I do believe - which uses radar to take control of the drone and probably track the origin of the controlling signal.

I've always been surprised that such things aren't licensed - perhaps they will be from now on.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 22 Dec 18 - 10:17 AM

No. Ban them entirely.

Cars can cause equally horrific injuries and more. Let's ban them while we're at it.

Not all drones are big boys' toys. There are many practical applications such as surveying, enabling the emergency services to search inaccessible area, farmers checking crops, etc. Licencing and mandatory training/testing with compulsory third party insurance is the way to go. The drones should also have display a registration number as with motor vehicles.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Drones
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 22 Dec 18 - 10:06 AM

You're a hard woman, Sen! ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Drones
From: Senoufou
Date: 22 Dec 18 - 09:18 AM

It was indeed a disgrace Steve. I expect they're setting up the protective technology as we speak. But it's long overdue.

And re-opening Gatwick doesn't mean all flights are instantly available. Most of the aircraft are parked at other airports having been diverted. It will probably be several days before normal service is resumed.

I would be very uneasy even just sitting in a park if a blooming drone was hovering. The clot could lose control and it might descend on my head, or onto a baby in a pram. Or go straight through the windscreen of a car. It could zoom into someone's face and blind them. It could terrify a herd of dairy cows or horses.

No. Ban them entirely.