Re:France’s military is training eagles to attack drones
by Retric on Wednesday February 22, 2017 @11:58AM
(#13706970)
If something costs 2.75 it's common to say it costs several dollars. Now, you can be picky, but in common usage saying several hundred for 280-320 km/h is not wrong.
Anyway, birds learn so you can train them to avoid the blades. Shooting something near buildings is risky and loud even with buckshot. Birds can also follow terrain etc. So, while this is far from perfect it's not a terrible or useless idea.
In any case, they most certainly cannot 'generally' avoid rotors. I have seen birds of prey - as well as smaller birds - attack and/or collide with UAVs. I have never seen a bird escape uninjured except with a small quadcopter with plastic blades. If someone was orchestrating a terrorist attack they would obviously need some sort of payload, and would not be flying a palm-sized plastic-blade quadcopter.
I think eagles are cool and they're clearly majestic creatures. But using them to catch a set of spinning blades in the sky - when a bullet works just fine - is really stupid.