It would actually be very interesting to see what would get dispatched - at what point do they give up trying to contact the operator? Do they go for electronic warfare to wrest control of it, or do they capture the physical drone? What kind of response time would they have?

Probably slow response if any, judging by the interception of the stolen Q400 at Sea-Tac and having listening to the civilian ATC providing intercept vectors. Don't get me wrong, they coordinated well, but I guess I'd have expected a military jet to receive broad airspace clearance & use advanced radar to zoom straight to their POI.

> but I guess I'd have expected a military jet to receive broad airspace clearance & use advanced radar to zoom straight to their POI.

That would required clearing the airspace. As well as being incredibly disruptive, it would take a long time to get everyone down safely.

There are circumstances under which a military aircraft commanders would declare responsibility for air safety in a crowded airspace (MARSA, "due regard")[1][2] but that aircraft theft wasn't one of them.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MARSA_(aviation)

[2] https://www.skybrary.aero/index.php/Due_Regard

If you want to crack down on people with drones, then capturing the physical drone with a net is very useful for identifying the purchaser. (Even in the case of DIY.)

It'd be really easy to connect a remote UHF radio to a stream, and ATC would never know. Get your clearance, taxi on to the runway, take off, say "have a nice day EIGHTTWOJULIET" as you clear their airspace.

maybe someone would look in the cabin and think it was weird they didn't see a head waving back, but in most cases i'd doubt it.

With some cheap animatronics, you could even fix that last bit...