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Gatwick Drone Theories

Discussion in 'Serious' started by Bungletron, 20 Dec 2018.

  1. Bungletron

    Bungletron Minimodder

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    Was wondering if internet brain has figured out whats going on in Gatwick with the drone yet?

    I had a quick look, official responses seem vague and unsubstantiated, an 'industrial' drone ' not terrorism related', really? Don't have much faith in these unsubstantiated claims, I thought it might be an environmental terrorist but I guess this may not count in the general climate. All we know is the Police are not keen to shoot it down but are looking for the operator; looking how? Who knows...

    Found some drone bods on Reddit, not very illuminating other than on battery life and flight time (flight time is short, batteries expensive, expensive drone would need to return for new batteries often or multiple expensive drones required) either: https://www.reddit.com/r/Multicopter/comments/a7w7ow/irresponsible_drone_operator_has_grounded_the/

    I know very little about drones. I know they are semi-autonomous but receive commands over the air from the operator? Why can't the Police get a signals engineer to triangulate the operator and is this difficult? Could a skilled programmer hack the drone to work completely autonomously? Any other insight to be had here?
     
  2. Corky42

    Corky42 Where's walle?

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    Like you IDK much about drones but i imagine trying to triangulate the operator would be difficult with so many other signals in the area, it would probably prove even more difficult if they were pre-programed to fly a flight path instead of receiving commands in flight.

    My guess is they're trying to keep eyes on the drone when it's spotted and watch where it goes, no mean feat in such a wide area, AFAIK there's not even any images of the drones yet, that in itself seems slightly odd for such a prominent situation.

    Maybe whoever's doing it has a grudge to bear with Gatwick or drones, there's probably going to be the usual knee-jerk reaction from the general public and politicians calling for stricter drone controls when the dust settles.
     
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  3. wolfticket

    wolfticket Downwind from the bloodhounds

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    On current evidence Occam's razor suggests: Some douchebags who think they're being daring by flying modded drones in restricted airspace and getting away with it. Things like intercepting signals, triangulating positions etc. are easy to say but difficult to do especially when you don't know exactly what you're dealing with.

    There also seems to be a side order of this going on in certain quarters:
    [​IMG]
     
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  4. Anfield

    Anfield Multimodder

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    Yep:

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...b02fb91ff0695f#block-5c1b983ae4b02fb91ff0695f
     
  5. Bungletron

    Bungletron Minimodder

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    I very much doubt a large conspiracy.

    However I do find the official statements on the investigation to be underwhelming, is it really just some bobbies with binoculars looking for the drone and following it around? There is likely a useful limit on the amount of bobbies and binoculars you can throw at any situation and they haven't found the operator yet! This technologically backward approach (I believe this was the air raid early warning system before radar in WW2!) does not seem to be paying dividends. Certainly if this is all that is being done then such incompetence from the authorities would continue to strengthen support of the idea that mindless idiots are the culprits; the authorities are simply so useless that they cannot find them yet, certainly the simplest and most credible theory.

    I am more interested on how you might track and trace the drone and its signals. Kids do worry less about consequences but if the operator does not intend on going to jail then I am also interested in how the drone can be modified to obscure an operator or modified to work completely autonomously, it seems obvious to me that any operator would be putting himself at great risk and would try and mitigate this.
     
  6. fix-the-spade

    fix-the-spade Multimodder

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    Around an airport there will be so much radio traffic that trying to isolate one signal and triangulate in real time would be nigh impossible.

    This is just some ***** being *****, a drone is nothing more than a RC helicopter with four rotors instead of two. 'Industrial' probably means it's a fairly beefy model designed for carrying a camera or survey gear as opposed to cheap plasticky toy one, which would make sense for it to be ables toget into and airport's airspace, a little toy one would run of battery or out of transmitter range.
     
  7. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    Assuming that they're not all chasing mirages, this has been going on for, what, twenty hours now? Your average affordable drone has a 20 minute battery life; your high-end drone might push that to 40 minutes; your really high-end drone might push it to an hour. Assuming there's only one drone, and it's not flying continuously but just popping up for ten minutes or so every hour to keep people on their toes, and that doing so involves a five-minute flight time from the transmitter location to the airport, ten minutes of buzzing coppers, and five minutes flight back... they've got a whooole bunch of batteries, basically, and they're swapping them out to keep things going. For me, that goes beyond "hurr-durr let's buzz an airport for funsies" and into the realms of deliberate denial of service attack.
     
  8. fix-the-spade

    fix-the-spade Multimodder

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    According to the news it was two drones at the same time last night, then one drone today, they appeared, flew into the flight line, then buggered off again. They only need to be there long enough to be noticed and it's hours of disruption as they cause a total stop on flights, flights won't start again until the Police say it can, which will take hours. If they cause a 4 hour stoppage that's 240-ish flights delayed or cancelled.

    I still think it's some ***** who think they're funny.
     
  9. Bungletron

    Bungletron Minimodder

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    Military are inbound. I assume its specialists not squadies, surely the military can track this like they would track aircraft or missiles?
     
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  10. MLyons

    MLyons 70% Dev, 30% Doge. DevDoge. Software Dev @ Corsair Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    So that's what he wanted that drone for... :hehe: police pls no raid me.

    Seems they've brought in the military with snipers (what could possible go wrong). At my guess we're about to find out how good the military are at tracking drones when they actually try. Similar to how most cyber criminals think they get away with stuff because they're good when it's actually because they aren't causing enough damage to be worth it.
     
  11. maxlxyd

    maxlxyd What's a Dremel?

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    You'd hope so wouldn't you. Guess we will find out soon...hopefully soon...
     
  12. Bungletron

    Bungletron Minimodder

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    For some reason I fear the military squad are all ringers who are secretly working with criminals and rather than retaking the airport they intend to get on the jumbo and escape with them instead. Yippee ki yay motherf***ers.
     
  13. RedFlames

    RedFlames ...is not a Belgian football team

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    Don't worry everyone the minister in charge of dealing with it is...

    *cheacks notes*

    ah... it's Chris Grayling... yep, Gatwick's ****ed.
     
  14. wolfticket

    wolfticket Downwind from the bloodhounds

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    Deliberate DDoS attacks and hurr-durr funsies are hardly mutually exclusive. Hackers and script kiddies have a long history of causing massive indiscriminate disruption just because they can and/or for the lulz.
     
  15. creative

    creative 500rwhp

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    there's more to this me thinks, including media manipulation.

    The units they are using, whilst are not your normal drone ( from what the media is reporting), are not capable of the sustained flight time that they have been doing without stopping and swapping batteries. we can assume that they are being flown via FPV, which is incredibly easy tap into and track.

    I find it incredibly hard to believe a major airport doesnt have a contingency plan for this.

    I also understand that some members of the FPV community have offered to go and simply knock it out the sky with a racer and it would all be over in a matter of minutes.

    *Tin foil hat time*

    Someone wanted to do this at a very busy time of year to make a point or to hide another (government/brexit) announcement. The information that is being peddled simply doesnt add up and these things are actually very easy to follow and/or remove from the sky... but no... we will sit around and bring the entire area to a standstill and prove how bad drones are ( because the typical "an impact to an aircraft will result in a fireball" myths have been disproved time and time again) Watch the authorities now try to regulate/restrict the hobby into oblivion so they can make money selling the airspace for commercial reasons.....
     
  16. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    But they don't normally spend several thousand pounds to do so, is my point.
     
  17. liratheal

    liratheal Sharing is Caring

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    If you're flying a drone in/at an active airport, you're an idiot.

    Given the current climate with regards to terrorism, there's no other theory necessary.

    Idiots is the answer to why/who in this situation.
     
  18. wolfticket

    wolfticket Downwind from the bloodhounds

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    On hardware that enables their hobby/obsession? Sure they do.
     
  19. Mister_Tad

    Mister_Tad Will work for nuts Super Moderator

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    A handful of sightings for mere moments are enough to keep the airport shut down - this isn't a case that there have just been a couple of drones continuously buzzing around the airport. Multiple sightings over time have confirmed that the operators of the drones are being intentionally disruptive and until the situation is resolved, the airport can't simply decide "well, we've not seen a drone for a few hours now, let's get back up and running it'll probably be fine"

    I'd be surprised if it transpired that these were being controlled live, I feel a number of pre-set A-to-B flight plans is more likely.

    As if they're going to get "some guy from the internet", an amateur hobbyist involved to do such a thing.

    Knock it out of the sky... and send debris crashing down over the airport? A runway? A house? Some kid?

    Following them back to base seems a more sensible approach. The perpetrators have already demonstrated that there's more than one drone in circulation, so knocking one or two down doesn't necessarily equate to it all being over.
     
  20. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    Well... they did decide exactly that at 3AM yesterday, then 45 minutes later spotted another one and had to close the runway again.
     

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