Gatwick Airport has spent last night and much of today shut down as a result of drones being flown near and over the runways. This is something of a problem for the country’s second largest airport. There’s a much bigger problem here though, which is that we can see that this could become – is likely to become – a favourite terrorist stratagem.
For don’t forget what a terrorist is actually trying to do – make it too expensive for us not to accede to their demands. Sure, this is most often expressed as deaths, something we all fear. But economic costs work too – work better often enough. And if someone can close down a major airport, affect tens of thousands of passengers, by the deployment of a $500 drone then why wouldn’t that become a tactic of choice?
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””] Tens of thousands of passengers have been disrupted by drones flying over one of the UK’s busiest airports. Gatwick’s runway has been shut since Wednesday night, as devices have been repeatedly flying over the airfield. Sussex Police said it was not terror-related but a “deliberate act” of disruption, using “industrial specification” drones. [/perfectpullquote]The reason for the shutdown is obviously that such drones are dangerous. 400 tonnes of aircraft hitting a drone at 300 mph and up can cause a lot of damage. Enough damage, perhaps, that the plane stops moving at 300 to 500 mph shortly after hitting the ground.
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””] Yet this is not an unforeseen event. It was inevitable. I’ve both written about the risk and warned an international airports conference in 2015 that this was “a clear and present danger” to their operations. Now the UK’s second-busiest airport is closed and demonstrably helpless in the face of a small piece of flying technology weighing much the same as a bag of sugar. Drones have been used before to disrupt airports. In Dubai it’s become almost commonplace – and there are frequent incursions at the UK’s smaller airports. The only surprise to date is that there hasn’t yet been a serious incident in UK airspace – as happened with a Boeing 738-800 belonging to Aeroméxico on 12 December on the final approach to Tijuana in Mexico. [/perfectpullquote]The thing is, well, yes, changing technology changes threats.
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]The chaos at Britain’s second-biggest airport, which left thousands of passengers stranded at the start of the holiday season getaway, was a case of a disruptive technology at work: Flights had to be halted after drones were found flying in the vicinity of London Gatwick. There’s a strong case for regulating them more strictly, and for keeping them out of hobbyists’ hands[/perfectpullquote]That’s also the wrong solution.
Yes, obviously enough, flying drones over an airport will cause costly delays. This will be an advantage to those who wish to call attention to their desires. We can even think of low level blackmail – pay us or we’ll fly our drones over your runway – as a result. And we can definitely think of terrorists deciding to cripple transport systems by this usage.
Banning the hobby use of drones is of course the wrong solution. Banning – as we already do – the wrong use of drones seems reasonable enough. But never underestimate the ability of the prodnoses and wowsers to justify the reduction in our liberty.
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I'm not sure how you can ban them. They are essentially models, and modellers make things from raw materials and standard items like electric motors and batteries. I can't see how you could ban them.....
While Plod remains unable to knock the drones out of the sky and arrest the controllers it's immaterial what the forbidden radius around airports might be.
The solution is to - as now - ban them from airport airspace, but enforce it with immediate and unappealable destruction of the offenders. Does nobody in Gatwick have a shotgun?
Effective range of a shotgun is 100 feet, maybe 200 if you're lucky, Even a modest drone is capable of flying at 1,000 feet.
Other projectile weapons are available.
Maybe Gatwick Airport should get some drones of their own and use them to ram any other drones that enter their airspace. The video stream could be beamed down to all the delayed passengers in the airport to amuse them while they wait. Like Robot Wars but in the sky.
‘The reason for the shutdown is obviously that such drones are dangerous. 400 tonnes of aircraft hitting a drone at 300 mph and up can cause a lot of damage. Enough damage, perhaps, that the plane stops moving at 300 to 500 mph shortly after hitting the ground.’
Here is an example of that logic.
A fly travelling south at 3mph weighing 2g collides with an express train weighing 500 tonnes travelling north at 120mph.
Evidently when fly and train collide, the latter will push the fly backward in its direction of travel and before the fly goes backward, it must stop going forward, and thus if the fly stops so must the train.
The train will also be smashed to smithereens because it weighs 500 tonnes and is travelling at 120mph.
Force = mass x acceleration. The kinetic energy of a drone weighing maybe 200g travelling at a few mph is insignificant to the kinetic energy of an aircraft travelling at 300mph or more.
It is a question of relative mass. Experiment. Head-but a drone hanging from the ceiling, then head but a bowling ball hanging from the ceiling, see if you get the same result.
And the aircraft is pushing air away in front of it... why there are sonic booms as air is compressed in front of a fast-moving object... therefore a drone impact would be cushioned by that air pressure if not actually pushed out of the way.
As with fly and train, it would be an elastic collision.
The main danger would be if it were sucked into an engine, but aero-engine makers test engines by firing chicken carcasses at them and design them to minimise damage in the event a real object, such as a bird, is sucked in in flight.
Planes are in more danger from birds, particularly large ones, because they can weigh several kg and are not made of bits of plastic held together by glue.
Except these were industrial drones which can lift up to 20kg - in fact some of them have petrol engines - so we are talking about more than 200g. Theres a video of a hobby drone crashing into a wing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QH0V7kp-xg0 -it's not pretty - could rupture the fuel tanks - includes a comparison with a bird strike. If a heavier drone hit it could be catastrophic.