Gatwick Drone 'Attack'

when is a drone not a drone?

BBC...

...Their release came as Sussex Police said they were relying on eye witnesses and there may have been no "genuine drone activity in the first place".

Riiiiiight......

on that basis it seems that anyone wanting to disrupt critical infrastructure only needs a 'virtual' drone.

There is a local clay pigeon shoot that shares our model flying field every second Sunday, I am pretty sure that their hit rate is somewhat better than 1 in 800 & the stray "bullets" would not go far.

I suggest that, if invited, they would feel quite happy to line the perimeter for a few hours to pop a stray drone; especially if someone gave them a reasonable share of the £50K reward money offered for the perpetrators of the crime.

We're fooled like this all the time - you've only got to watch "'I'm a Celebrity" to know it

This is how they do it in America

**LINK**

Starts at about 1.5 mins

Edited By Sam Longley 1 on 23/12/2018 20:42:57

They were lucky. Under the anti-terror laws -- which a large chunk of the public was screaming to be invoked -- they could have been held for 28 days without charge.

Over a drone that now is not wholly certain to have existed?

What ever will the plods do when a sleigh and full team of reindeer enter national airspace?

The public are unreliable witnesses. I recall my neighbout of old hammering on the door one night in a bland panic over a UFO. He couldn't be pursuaded otherwise until it turned sideways and displayed 'goodyear' in lights.

pgk

The RAF would deal wth Santa.

Edited By V8Eng on 23/12/2018 23:03:20

Well NORAD tracks Santa, worth a look on Christmas Eve.

Seasons Greetings to all

Bill

Environmentalists are becoming more proactive

(my previous post vanished)

I'm no pacifist but that is a screwed up society

And they are not very good at shooting down model planes either. Why bother to make them move - they could probably not hit the target if it was attached to a pole! Your models are safe methinks.

My wife was watching the programme about one of our warships & I noticed a bit where one of the gunners was aiming at a target at sea. To be fair to the amateur Americans they were probably no worse than our"professionals"

Later in the programme the female captain congratulated the gunner on his shooting, but from the little I saw only a couple of bullets actually hit the target, with most shots scattered around it. I could not help wondering how the gunner would have faired if the target had been a in Israeli soldier with a similar machine gun returning fire. I doubt if our man would have got off more than a couple of rounds.

At least the Americans did eventually hit all the model planes. Mind you a shotgun might have been a better weapon than some of the artillery pieces. Fun firing one though!!. Bit worrying knowing that the druggy neighbour up the road might have one in the garage.

Having had my knuckles rapped earlier in this post for veering towards politics (a fair cop), things seem to have veered well away from the tech of drones to delve back into politics and even religion without comment from the mods (no sex, yet). Does that mean I can start to talk about the success or otherwise of terrorism again?

Naah !!

Stick to the sex angle it is more fun than droning on about politics

Edited By Sam Longley 1 on 24/12/2018 10:04:09

Alas poor humanity! We love jumping to conclusions. We pin the blame on pet hobby horses and remain convinced of their guilt even if they're later proved to be completely innocent. We think savage punishments are the answer to crimes that never happened. We enjoy newspapers like the the Daily Fail because they whip up our sense of righteousness indignation, even when the journalists know the story is bollocks.

My theory is that evolution is to blame. If you catch a movement out of the corner of your eye, instinct says 'react - it's a bear'. That the fact of meeting a bear in your kitchen is unlikely makes no difference. For a brief moment logic disappears, and 'fight' or 'flight' become the only options on the table. We behave like startled birds. If one reacts to a perceived threat the whole flock panics, leaping into the air and squawking alarm calls to make sure the entire flock escapes. Makes good sense if you're a starling and there's a cat about, not so clever if you're a member of a technological society at an airport.

Our brains are wired for pattern recognition. Much of what detect is real, quite a lot is wrong. We see castles in the fire. We blame foreigners for all our ills despite evidence to the contrary. Ghosts, the Loch Ness Monster, UFOs, dreams, and extremism are probably all due to signals being decoded wrongly.

Curious thing is, once one person reports seeing something, other people will see it too. Or at least they think they've seen it! People convinced only they know the truth make politics and religion dangerous subjects to debate.

It's not that feelings and beliefs don't matter, but engineers should surely be wide awake to the possibility that perceptions are not facts. I'd define an engineer firstly as a man(or woman) who makes things work, and secondly as a man who makes things work for minimum cost. Results are mainly achieved by a fact based approach. Solid facts are far more valuable than gut feel and snap judgements made in the absence of evidence.

Shooting from the hip is only OK in a gunfight - it's usually better to achieve results by thinking methods. I think engineers should moderate opinion by applying their analytical skills to to situations like this. Sadly, when the rest of the world has a dose of the screaming abdabs, engineers and rational thinkers become very unpopular. People don't like being told that they are being stupid, and most of us would rather carry on regardless than admit a mistake! The effect is particularly strong when a large group catches the same bug and when the mistake is enormous. I could mention Tulipomania, the South Sea Bubble, Stalinism, Fascism, Eugenics, Social Darwinism, and bombing Pearl Harbour!

New Years' resolution: Slow Down, Check Evidence, Engage Brain, Reject Emotional Inputs, and only then Decide. Even then, follow the evidence and be ready to change your mind as necessary to accommodate the facts. Mistakes are learning opportunities, there's no value in supporting incorrect beliefs.

Dave

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 24/12/2018 11:02:08

I think the correct response to that post might be " Don't judge others by yourself!!"

Edited By Sam Longley 1 on 24/12/2018 11:11:36

Could be that: "It's easier to fool people, than to convince them that they have been fooled". A quote often attributed to Mark Twain.

"People are a problem". Douglas Adams.

I have deleted a few posts without comment and will continue to do so.

Hi, I think the trouble with this drone issue is the same old problem, where, the authorities are dammed if they do and dammed if they don't. What if Gatwick just ignored the possibility of these sightings and the police just thought they had a bit of paranoia believing that they were a threat. So, Gatwick just carried flying out passengers and then the unthinkable happened regardless of all the technical issues that say it would be highly unlikely that such a drone could bring down an aeroplane. I think the public outcry would be enormous if it did happen and the authorities just ignored the sightings out of hand.

Regards Nick.