"With advance warning, I'm going to fly a robot into an area where your rules will require you to not fly airplanes into the airport" is quite a bit weaker (note the absence of any actual threat to the airplanes).

How is that any different from calling in a fake bomb threat?

It's different from "I'm going to fly a robot into an airplane". My point is that gok's summary of this threat is rather off the mark. As for gok's analogy to a bomb threat... enough has probably already been said about that.

I suppose a bomb is a threat whether the plane flies or not, while a drone is only a threat if the airport decides to fly planes despite knowing there are drones in the area.

Apply common sense: One threatens violence, the other threatens inconvenience. Duh. If a "fake bomb threat," were called, it would have no effect. Bomb threats have to be credible to have weight, which would also an act of terrorism, meant or not.

What, they are just making up rules for fun? If it shuts down the airport, it is because it poses a risk to planes. Otherwise they'd just ignore the drone.

They aren't trying to kill people, so they aren't colloquially terrorists, but they are purposefully introducing risk to the activity of ordinary people.

Giving warnings is more responsible than the alternatives, but it doesn't really excuse putting passengers at risk.

So you’re trying to make a point by positing the most extreme scenarios of what these people could do instead of what they’ve clearly stated they will do-anticipated actions that don’t come close to being the same thing as bombing airplanes or destroying physical infrastructure?

Perhaps I missed reading statements where these people said they would fly an unmanned drone into a plane

I feel like there should be a term for this tactic of debate...

If someone called in a bomb threat and said "I'm only going to blow up the areas between the runways; don't worry, there will be no loss of life or limb", I'm pretty sure that the response would be the same.

They are doing this because they know that the risk of danger is high enough that officials will shut down air traffic.

Exactly. Forcing officials hands by diverting and disrupting normal aviation activity is the exact outcome this group wants. Not a loss of life. It seems that you understand this point quite well.

The response may or may not be the same if a bomb threat were called, but that’s not what happened and it seems you clearly understand this; I’m forced to then ask-why stretch the metaphor to the point of absurdity as you’ve done above?

Um, to me it looks like you're yelling at the wrong person. I think gok is the one with the bomb threat analogy, not shaftway.

Not sure about yelling but I did indeed direct the inquiry to the wrong party. My apologies for this mistake.

Except they are not threatening to fly a drone into a plane.

So if LHR decides to let airplanes fly anyway, they'll stop flying the drones?

Or continue flying them in places where it's forbidden, but planes don't go. Which is not 100% without risk and would leave little time to react if they'd leave them (which is why flying there is forbidden), but very far from "intentionally flying a drone into a plane".

In particular, I strongly suspect that Heathrow has zones which, while not directly in the flight path, are still "too close" and will therefore cause them to stop operating airplanes.

As you say, that's not 100% without risk. It's an erosion of the safety margin, and safety margins are there for a reason.

Quite probably. They're not crazy. Not as crazy as LHR would be in this hypothetical situation.