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Re:Drone hits British Airways plane approaching Heathrow Air... by codecamper on Sunday April 17, 2016 @05:07PM (#11516316)
How about just jamming them?

Nobody needs to be flying drones near airports. Seriously.

I'm certainly not interested in pulling this off.. but how hard would it be to just simultaneously launch a swarm into a busy airport while planes are landing?

Re:Drone hits British Airways plane approaching Heathrow Air... by paulmd on Sunday April 17, 2016 @06:17PM (#11516609)
"Return-to-home" functionality is quite common. The GPS knows where it took off, and where it is now, and in the event that it loses the control signal it'll (try to) navigate back home.

Having a drone under control is almost always preferable to having a drone out of control, particularly in the pattern of a major airport. If you're going to take it down, it needs to happen in a way that gives you control of the drone, not just messes up their control.

Re:Drone hits British Airways plane approaching Heathrow Air... by Analemma_ on Sunday April 17, 2016 @06:14PM (#11516588)
> How about just jamming them?

The time window in which that's a valid option is closing fast. Autonomous flyers that don't need an external signal are already pretty good and after a few more years of iterations, they'll be even better and available to everyone. Not to mention air traffic requires lots of radio communication of its own, along with radar and GPS, and jamming equipment would need to be guaranteed not to interfere with any of that. It's a non-solution.

Re:Drone hits British Airways plane approaching Heathrow Air... by dingaling on Sunday April 17, 2016 @05:41PM (#11516448)
> Nobody needs to be flying drones near airports.

But who defines 'near'? At present, this is defined by the industry with a vested interest in passing the costs onto regulators and law enforcement. Not in investing in drone detection or mitigation technology.

CTRs around airports already deprive residents of their airspace rights, often to a radius of 5nm from an airport. In many cities that means no drones in a large chunk of residential area.