Drone hits British Airways plane approaching Heathrow Airport

Re:Drone hits British Airways plane approaching Heathrow Air... by robert_tweed on Sunday April 17, 2016 @03:24PM (#11515867)

I suppose intent matters too. A drone hitting a plane by mistake is apparently not unlike a bird strike, but how do you tell if a given drone has an explosive payload and is being aimed intentionally at an engine intake? It's only a matter of time. It makes sense to keep drones out of airport flightpaths. More sense than most of the post-911 security theatre, at least.

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Re:Drone hits British Airways plane approaching Heathrow Air... by NinjaViking on Sunday April 17, 2016 @04:13PM (#11516104)

And do you think that somebody who packs his drone with C4 and aims it at passenger aircraft is going to care if he is violating a flightpath? Forbidden is not the same as impossible.

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Re:Drone hits British Airways plane approaching Heathrow Air... by Avshalom on Sunday April 17, 2016 @04:56PM (#11516272)

Right but 'it is illegal to put a drone in this airspace' gives us permission to shoot down anything in a flight path before impact, including the ones with C4.

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Re:Drone hits British Airways plane approaching Heathrow Air... by arjie on Sunday April 17, 2016 @05:47PM (#11516476)

What weapons does one use to shoot down a toy drone? You can't miss because on the other side, there are people, and if it hits, it shouldn't lead to dangerous parts all over the runway.

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Re:Drone hits British Airways plane approaching Heathrow Air... by Avshalom on Sunday April 17, 2016 @05:56PM (#11516513)

I think right now the idea is generally a bigger faster one with a net.

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Re:Drone hits British Airways plane approaching Heathrow Air... by arjie on Sunday April 17, 2016 @06:08PM (#11516560)

That's a clever one. More importantly, it makes for an amusing picture.

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Re:Drone hits British Airways plane approaching Heathrow Air... by kaybe on Sunday April 17, 2016 @07:44PM (#11516896)

Not as cool as hunting birds though, which is being tried too. Drones are probably more practical, I guess.

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Re:Drone hits British Airways plane approaching Heathrow Air... by Piskvorrr on Monday April 18, 2016 @06:56AM (#11518919)

Now you have two problems, as in "Engine 1 ate the drone, while Engine 2 ate the eagle."

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Re:Drone hits British Airways plane approaching Heathrow Air... by etherael on Sunday April 17, 2016 @10:00PM (#11517282)

I've seen that, but wouldn't a laser actually be more reliable / faster?

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Re:Drone hits British Airways plane approaching Heathrow Air... by Avshalom on Sunday April 17, 2016 @10:26PM (#11517383)

Well like arjie said, you don't really want flying debris near people/runways

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Re:Drone hits British Airways plane approaching Heathrow Air... by etherael on Monday April 18, 2016 @02:28AM (#11518041)

And maybe the energy necessary to actually vaporise entirely would not be the kind of thing one would be wanting to punch up into the atmosphere willy nilly.

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Re:Drone hits British Airways plane approaching Heathrow Air... by Piskvorrr on Monday April 18, 2016 @07:13AM (#11518981)

Not to mention that you actually need an actual cannon, not a pointer. http://www.defense-aerospace.com/articles-view/feature/5/159... Yup, that's definitely something you want to mess with around an airport. "Wait, I was supposed to shoot down that other blip?"

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