Droning on...

[fluffyflops 1,863]

Flight crew are different.  Ive said a million times on here spend an hour in a large OCC you'd never get on a aircraft again!! 

 

[jmdriskell 178]

Similar problem to the idiots that flash aircraft on approach at night with lasers.  However, drones are probably subject to RF interception which could stop them for a while.  Seems to me that anyone caught should probably spend 5-10 years making gravel out of reject reinforced reject concert pilings using iron handled mauls.  That might probably discourage others.

That very sentence reduced the minor offense rate to near zero at office hours while I was on Okinawa many years ago.  And no repeat offenders!

[fluffyflops 1,863]

12 minutes ago, ErichB said:

 

Anyway, back to Derek - the Drone Devil of Doom

I'll punt Derek is going to be 74 from Eastbourne and used to work on the railway.  It isn't going to be Leroy from Peckham 

[fluffyflops 1,863]

How far would the bloke have to be from Gatwick to fly it? 

Would he need to be in sight of it? 

How much flying time on the battery? 

Surely the cops follow it to where it lands and then nick the guy,? 

I know nothing about drone flying, sorry if I sound stupid 

Edited December 20, 2018 by tooting

[skelsey 765]

19 minutes ago, tooting said:

How far would the bloke have to be from Gatwick to fly it? 

Would he need to be in sight of it? 

How much flying time on the battery? 

Surely the cops follow it to where it lands and then nick the guy,? 

I know nothing about drone flying, sorry if I sound stupid 

I would wager that it's possible nobody at all is actively flying the things - they could well be pre-programmed on GPS tracks and/or remotely controlled from another country even.

That said, clearly there is someone changing the batteries relatively (which could still be some miles radius) nearby and moving location frequently.

Note also that it's not clear that the drones are actually flying "all" the time - it sounds as though they're turning up, disappearing, turning up, disappearing etc rather than a continuous presence (though I may be wrong).

Either way - unlit in gloomy conditions I would imagine tracking to be very difficult (though now the army are involved that may change as they are obviously capable of e.g. tracking mortar fire with radar and I imagine similar techniques & equipment could be used here).

[anden145 2,299]

Indeed. I read somewhere, that some drones are capable of being remotely controlled utilizing a built-in 4G/LTE connection. This would then connect to a some cloud software.

Theoretically, that would mean, that such drones would be able to be controlled from pretty much anywhere in the world...

[Pastaiolo 1,688]

1 hour ago, tooting said:

How far would the bloke have to be from Gatwick to fly it? 

Would he need to be in sight of it? 

How much flying time on the battery? 

Surely the cops follow it to where it lands and then nick the guy,? 

I know nothing about drone flying, sorry if I sound stupid 

Talking about the standard DJI (drone leader), it doesn't have to have visual sight on it since the image is trasmitted back to the phone, the range can be around 3-4km and the battery last for 30 minutes or so.

[ryanbatc 13,031]

What do you guys have for policy with drones near airports in the UK?  The US is pretty strict...but of course that's only if the person chooses to follow the law.

[GACSavannah 231]

My DJI drone only stays aloft for about 12-15 minutes on a battery, while transmitting back 1080P to my VR headset the entire time. Perhaps some models that are not transmitting large image files may be able to stay aloft longer. As for Ryans question, the UK limits drone use to no more than 120 Meters (about  400 feet) and 1KM away from any airport. The US has similar laws in FAR 107. 

I found it pretty amusing that when I linked over to the BBC news article from the start of this thread, while reading about all of the 'disruptive horrible drones and their pilots', I was being bombarded by ads along the sides advertising and enticing me to buy ...various models of DJI drones.

 

[Jim Young 2,356]

I read ATC in the UK has been asking for measures to prevent drones from entering the restricted airspace around the airports.  ATC may be shutting down the airspace on purpose to force the development of countermeasures.  In any case, I feel sorry for the people trying to get out of the country for Christmas.  Having traveled a lot and suffering 2 hours or longer delays, I can see patience must be wearing thin.

1 hour ago, GACSavannah said:

I found it pretty amusing that when I linked over to the BBC news article from the start of this thread, while reading about all of the 'disruptive horrible drones and their pilots', I was being bombarded by ads along the sides advertising and enticing me to buy ...various models of DJI drones.

I edited this post and replaced it with an article from AP instead of Daily Mail.  I was hoping everyone would read the article even though there were other distractions like advertising.  The AP is not much better but they seem to get down to posting an article rather than a lot of pictures and advertising.

[GACSavannah 231]

"I was hoping everyone would read the article even though there were other distractions like advertising."

The presence of the advertising was fine. I was simply amused by the content of the advertising... They were advertising drones...while reporting on the drones wrecking havoc 🙂

[Chock 17,769]

Just finished a shift at EGCC. Had to work 4 hours extra to cover all the diversions from Gatwick. Currently Sat on the staff bus to the car park absolutely soaking wet from the rain. I hope they send the person responsible for all this to jail. They have caused a major disruption to passengers and airlines all across Europe. There are loads of aircraft out of position. We've even got a Norwegian 787 here at Mcr, and that never normally comes here.

 

[fluffyflops 1,863]

8 hours ago, france89 said:

Talking about the standard DJI (drone leader), it doesn't have to have visual sight on it since the image is trasmitted back to the phone, the range can be around 3-4km and the battery last for 30 minutes or so.

Thank you 

[fluffyflops 1,863]

1 hour ago, Chock said:

Just finished a shift at EGCC. Had to work 4 hours extra to cover all the diversions from Gatwick. Currently Sat on the staff bus to the car park absolutely soaking wet from the rain. I hope they send the person responsible for all this to jail. They have caused a major disruption to passengers and airlines all across Europe. There are loads of aircraft out of position. We've even got a Norwegian 787 here at Mcr, and that never normally comes here.

 

Alan like I said earlier up the thread.  In my Occ its been a NIGHTMARE. We've crew all over the shop. 

A/C that are due in the LHR/LGW hangers for engineering checks and rectification checks have missed their time in the hanger so their Mels are about to expire and thenfore the 'a/c drops dead' etc at midnight zulu on the expiry day making it aog till its rectified.  Having an AOG on an expired Mel in say St Lucia is a NIGHTMARE. 

We've got crews due In the sim next week for opcs/lpcs but their stuck In The USA and need the 3 local nights days off afterwards coming back into lhr/lgw so hence missing their sim slots.

Same with cabin crew going on recurrents, there all stuck away in the usa and have to have 3 or 4*days off when they land back   therefore missing their annual recurrents, CRM, security courses, first aid, if it was rostered this week. you name it, Stuff like this hits everything,i mean everything, as i always say people underestimate the knock on and bigger picture of what goes on behind the scenes when stuff like this happens. This is what happens at an airline that people, (even pilots and crew) never think off behind the scenes. This is why we bang onto the crew about 'the bigger picture'  when they make decesions on the line it has a knock on effect to loads of other aspects of the business. Engineering hanger slots being a huge one. 

And then not to mention the cost in eu complaint payments its going to be a nightmare in that respect too. 

I'm just glad to be going onto days off now.  Phew

Edited December 21, 2018 by tooting

[simbol 5,832]

Crist, well @tooting, @Chock I want to express my gratitude to you and your colleagues for all the hard work put in place, and on behalf of many families that I know you were able to help during this massive disruption, THANKS YOU.

As I always say, real heros are always behind the scenes.

For the people responsible for these drone attack, I am sure we will catch you and you will pay for the consequences of your actions.

Regards 

Simbol