There is no question that risk to life cannot be ignored, but closing an airport down is so costly, both in monetary terms and inconvenience to passengers. We cannot go on like this, purely based on one person claiming, rightly, wrongly or mistakenly that he he or her has seen a drone over an airport.Agree with Horton. If we don't police ourselves, the government will gladly do it for us. Only they won't be bothered with having to police anything and will just shutdown the sale and operation of drones.
This is right on. Because of what appears like relative ease of confirming these sightings based on current tech or even existing airport radar only fuels the conspiracy theorists to question the validity of these claims, and the motivations behind them. Catching a perpetrator, and confirming (with video proof or otherwise) the actual sightings, would go a long way into stopping this from happening... If in fact it really is...There is no question that risk to life cannot be ignored, but closing an airport down is so costly, both in monetary terms and inconvenience to passengers. We cannot go on like this, purely based on one person claiming, rightly, wrongly or mistakenly that he he or her has seen a drone over an airport.
These things are electronic, using radio signals. Ok they can be really quite small, but surely there is technology available to detect their presence and pinpoint their exact location, which does not cost millions of pounds. I am surprised that airport radar cannot see them, or at least be modified to see them.
I am sure everything I am saying is already being looked into, but like everything else it will take years to come to fruition. Surely if a drone is being flown, the radio signal alone can be detected, even if only to confirm a siting.
According to the BBC News today, all UK airports now have, or soon will have “military grade anti drone equipment” fitted. This equipment can detect, track and take down drones. Police are to be given stronger powers in this area. Hopefully, the “thrill” or whatever some people get in flying a drone in controlled airspace will disappear (or become too expensive!)
No drone just stupid BS as usal, but them doing this has added weight to the other BS incident at Gatwick, that's all the authorities need to say to get the dumb public up in arms and be anti drone.