Drone disrupting flights from LGW this morning

[Bogie_Bear]

This is an issue very close to me and one that has had enormous repercussions in this industry and will do so for a long time to come. The initial headlines of "Are these the idiots who ruined Xmas" was designed to fuel a mob mentality and incite hatred against them on absolutely no evidence. It's a well know media tactic when they've got **** ALL to say on a subject and even less evidence to back it up with to phrase a headline as a question. The laziest form of gutter journalism possible and utterly reprehensible. It destroyed these guys and even now they get hate mail and online abuse from those idiots who believe there's no smoke without fire. Lives destroyed for a tawdry tacky headline written by cowards hiding behind the "letter" of the law and protected by hundreds of equally scummy lawyers. I've lost count of how many times people have asked me about the Gatwick drone, I just tell them it was me now and watch the reaction on their faces! UAVs are an incredible asset, we work in the congested R157/R158/R159 zones on a very regular basis and every single op has screamers threatening us with legal action for filming them without permission or sending intrusive mind-thoughts etc etc etc.

Though amazingly, offer jo public the chance of same day delivery on their eBay tat and they've got no issues with Hermes / Yodel or Uber flying drones up to their bedroom windows........

 

[Listy]

Tbh, have not found the perps behind it and it’s a constant worry / threat lingering out there so it’s still in present.

cheers

I believe there's zero threat. That door has been slammed shut with rather a lot of force, and had large pieces of crooked wood nailed over it by the HO.
Then it was welded shut. Thrown in a landfill and buried under six tons of concrete.

The HO approved certain measures that have been rolled out to most airports after a couple of months. There appears to be jamming in place, on at least some of the airports (if not most? No idea, the only datapoint we have is...), as was proved by the attempted drone attack on Heathrow. The Protestors were standing around their drone that was refusing to take off as it had no signal, when the police showed up en mass. So it's likely that there's at least two levels of drone control. First there's the EW aspect, then there's a second layer.
Of course the above is just extrapolated guesses, from stuff I saw. So take it with however much salt you require.

 

[Escape-from-PPRuNe]

you have to say seeing as nobody saw it, nobody photographed it, nobody got a radar contact, nobody got a passive EW detection, and nobody found any forensics, it does sound a lot like there might not have been anything there.

obviously the Heathrow one involved someone being arrested, as @Listy says, standing next to a drone, so there's precious little doubt there.

 

[Onetap]

you have to say seeing as nobody saw it, nobody photographed it, nobody got a radar contact, nobody got a passive EW detection, and nobody found any forensics, it does sound a lot like there might not have been anything there.

Or someone, kids maybe, flew a toy drone around for 15 minutes and had scarpered before any adult response was mobilized. There was nothing there when a lot of people started looking for a drone and some people, expecting to see a drone, started reporting lights in the sky or something that they thought was a drone.

 

[aardvark64]

This is a view of the recent air-proximity reports between aircraft and drones at UK airports.

Source: UK AirProx Board

 

[MOzanne]

This is a view of the recent air-proximity reports between aircraft and drones at UK airports.

View attachment 525654

Source: UK AirProx Board

80% of drone airprox reports are misclassified by the UK Airprox Board - sUAS News - The Business of Drones

Following a Freedom of Information Act request, the UK Airprox Board, the official body which collates airprox (‘near miss’) reports from pilots, described the process they use for classifying a drone airprox: The Board adopts a pragmatic approach wherein if a pilot can positively identify the...

www.suasnews.com

 

[stacker1]

This is an issue very close to me and one that has had enormous repercussions in this industry and will do so for a long time to come. The initial headlines of "Are these the idiots who ruined Xmas" was designed to fuel a mob mentality and incite hatred against them on absolutely no evidence. It's a well know media tactic when they've got **** ALL to say on a subject and even less evidence to back it up with to phrase a headline as a question. The laziest form of gutter journalism possible and utterly reprehensible. It destroyed these guys and even now they get hate mail and online abuse from those idiots who believe there's no smoke without fire. Lives destroyed for a tawdry tacky headline written by cowards hiding behind the "letter" of the law and protected by hundreds of equally scummy lawyers.

Get yourself back over to the Harry and Meghan thread and watch the Spastic Defence League getting angry over headlines designed to generate outrage.
Then the mob try to outdo each other in an effort to show just much they are frothing at the mouth over made up stories.

 

[Lindermyer]

80% of drone airprox reports are misclassified by the UK Airprox Board - sUAS News - The Business of Drones

Following a Freedom of Information Act request, the UK Airprox Board, the official body which collates airprox (‘near miss’) reports from pilots, described the process they use for classifying a drone airprox: The Board adopts a pragmatic approach wherein if a pilot can positively identify the...

www.suasnews.com

Somewhat fallacious argument hes trying to make there

Drones arent a big problem because theres only a few 100% confirmed as drone sightings - perticuarly in the criteria for positive ID to be classified as a drone.

Rest are officially UFO - thats fine as far as it goes - but thats completely ignoring the definatly was but i couldnt ID it -
A helo just went past me - ive no idea what it was quick glimpse lost in cloud - It was definetly a helicopter.

In short the authour can do one because whilst technically they may be classed as UFOs not having a positive Drone ID - the reality is - the vast majority will have been correctly ID'd as Drones.

 

[Bogie_Bear]

Somewhat fallacious argument hes trying to make there

Drones arent a big problem because theres only a few 100% confirmed as drone sightings - perticuarly in the criteria for positive ID to be classified as a drone.

Rest are officially UFO - thats fine as far as it goes - but thats completely ignoring the definatly was but i couldnt ID it -
A helo just went past me - ive no idea what it was quick glimpse lost in cloud - It was definetly a helicopter.

In short the authour can do one because whilst technically they may be classed as UFOs not having a positive Drone ID - the reality is - the vast majority will have been correctly ID'd as Drones.

Consumer drones are generally pretty small, blink and you miss it, pretty much limited to the DJU Phantom ranges, perhaps a few others. Commercial UAVs jump massively in price and in doing so would be flown with perhaps a bit more fore-thought than just throwing a DJI up. Hell of a lot of boxes to tick and forms to fill and a full paper trail of accountability.

Airprox 2018275 – ‘Drone’: The A319 pilot reports that they were at 7nm final on the ILS to Heathrow RW27L, when they passed a flying object. It was V shaped, yellow and about 1m in diameter. The type of the object was not clearly identifiable, but it was thought to be a drone.

I'm sure there's a few guys on here who could tell us what height an aircraft would be around this postion on approach and the only UAV I can think of fitting this description is funnily enough one of the ones we use, the F8+

As you can see, v-shaped and yellow. About £25k of aircraft that without special permissions wouldn't be above 120m and most certainly wouldn't be zipping around the glide-path into Heathrow airport.

I'm very much of the opinion that everything and anything that is spotted is automatically classed UAV until proven otherwise, from birds to plastic bags and Chinese lanterns.

 

[exbluejob]

I'm very much of the opinion that everything and anything that is spotted is automatically classed UAV until proven otherwise, from birds to plastic bags and Chinese lanterns.

Given the antics of some of the feckwits flying 'hobby' drones its hardly surprising that the aviation community have become sensitised to 'drones'.

 

[Cold_Collation]

Given the antics of some of the feckwits flying 'hobby' drones its hardly surprising that the aviation community have become sensitised to 'drones'.

Indeed. A female friend who lives nearby in a nice house on a hilltop can't sunbathe for the idiots sending drones over. It's a gross invasion of privacy.

 

[Chef]

Indeed. A female friend who lives nearby in a nice house on a hilltop can't sunbathe for the idiots sending drones over. It's a gross invasion of privacy.

You know Mrs Markle then?

 

[Edwardian Fred]

Unless it's carrying an Al-qeada action man I cannot see the problem. Lining up a drone to be ingested would involve some pretty neat trigonometry and probably have the same effect as sucking on a pigeon or less.
Personally I thought the reports were a bit like 60's UFO mania.
Remember though. Tostie lives matter.