Extinction Rebellion plans to shut down Heathrow Airport with drones - Polidicks

Mmm, I'm not sure I agree. I think the Governmen can and potentially could have by declaring it a 'threat to national security' by their in mass abandoning their posts.

Yeah so what's the problem here again? If it has to take off close to the airport then it will and it can only go back to that random place if the failsafe is triggered. How exactly does that help the police find the perps?

The problem is that you probably won't be able to fly further than 100 meters while the jammers are active 1.5 km from the airport, good luck.

And? As I said, what does that have to do with the failsafe mechanism?

You won't be able to fly further than 100 meters before it automatically flies back, kind of defeats the purpose if it has to hover right above you doesn't it?

Signal packaging and filtering requires some practical knowledge but it isn't exactly rocket science either. Again, how did the Gatwick pilot manage to bypass the jammers if not by either changing frequency or using a stronger emitter?

Hey there friends. A friendly reminder that drones are just tools and drone warfare is nothing new. In fact that airport in particular has purchased an anti-drone weapons system earlier this year. There's even animals trained in taking down drones such as the Dutch Eagles, microwave guns, jammers, and even drones slamming into other drones. That doesn't even include the plethora of jamming systems and the like available as well. This is a dumb protest of attrition that will lose because the drone weapons are infinite in their attack capabilities, aka they don't have to make or buy more of them. If they aren't caught first that is. If you want an actual meaningful protest, don't target an airport. Instead target cargo shipping which is a far more harmful industry that has been forgotten by the public despite its importance.

You obviously have no idea how RF works if you're actually serious with that. RF engineering is hard and there's a reason why there's only a handful of good protocols around. You're not going to be building your own reliable shit in your garage, let alone make it work reliably on other frequencies that are already being used for something else. This discussion is becoming pointless because it's obvious you have no idea what you're talking about.

I understand the motives and reasoning they have for wanting to protest, but didn't these guys fuck around with the public transport system in London as part of their protest? You know, public transport, that thing people are encouraged to use instead of using cars to get about the city? Block roads, fine. That'll stop the cars moving and actually disrupt a hell of a lot more than fucking about with the Tube, which is an incredibly useful method of getting around London, since it ties in with the DLR and railway lines.

I'm literally pointing out your own fucking posts here: What other and easier ways? If you're going to make assertions, it's only fair that we'd expect you to back them up.

Currently the road is paved by total inaction, apathy, and general "DO NOT GIVE A FUCK" from people like yourself. I guess that, in some sick, fucking twisted reality, this is preferable for you people. It's fucking insane how american culture bred a generation of people so selfish, the idea of sacrificing any element of their lives for the sake of the human race is just asking too damn much. Fuck man. I'm a depressed individual, and every time I remember people like you are the majority, and why this issue can't be solved, I just want to put a bullet in my head. In all honestly, you're as much a part of the problem as the 100 companies that cause 70% of the actual pollution. Because putting the screws to them would effect you, so we can't do that

You know like, just block people trying to get to the airfield? Not only does that serve the same purpose of basically keeping an airport from functioning, it doesn't include serious criminal offenses to downright possible terrorism charges for endangering aircraft carrying hundreds of people. I'm not going to get into the technicalities of how to properly block an airfield, because there's so many different ways you can do it, it doesn't matter. Whatever happens you'll get arrested, drone or not.

You're not going to get into the technicalities because you know that'll get shot down for being ineffective bullshit. Tell us more about those ways, then.

Jesus christ dude. Okay, let's play the same dirty game you're playing. If you say it's so easy to circumvent jammers, microwave guns and all those anti-drone goodies, and it's so easy to RF engineer your drones into a completely new frequency, it's only fair that we'd expect you to back them up? Oh you said signal packaging and filtering only requires some practical knowledge? How would you go around re-engineering a protocol to use a different frequency band? Don't forget to mention the technicalities of how you'd build your receiver and transmitter to support your new protocol! Oh you're not going to get into that because you know that'll get shot down for being dumb bullshit? Like come the fuck on man, grow up.

You said that even an unsuccessful intrusion where the drone's signal gets jammed and it just crashes would result in the airport being shut down anyway: So, mission accomplished? I don't need to get into those technicalities because as it stands, that remains a more effective way to shut down the airport than whatever you're suggesting. How would simple protesters manage to block all people from entering the planes and keep blocking them for as long as the airport would be shut down in the other scenario, all the while not being kicked out by security?

Could drones carrying signal boosters/transmitters for other drones circumvent the jammers reducing the range, assuming you have enough coverage? 🤔

the IRA did this plenty to avoid casualties when it came to bombing places

Ah yes, a drone is a more effective way to shut down an airport than just protesting and blocking people from entering. But calling in a fake bomb threat is also a more effective way to shut down an airport than blocking people. Don't you understand that flying a drone into an airport with the intent to cause chaos is a very serious crime? Blocking people, however, probably won't land you in jail for years.

Why are you worried about extra regulations being legislated if the drone defenses are so foolproof that this plan is dead in the water? Surely if you are so confident that they won't be able to pull it off successfully, this will just act as a demonstration that drones can't be used to disrupt airports and additional legislation isn't necessary.

Any drone sighting anywhere close to an airport will lead to it being shut down, even if the drone gets taken down almost instantly. The security in airports is very high and no matter how easy the drone gets taken out, stuff will be shut down for a while out of precaution. The obvious reaction to avoiding this in the future is making it even harder to get a drone in the first place with further regulation.

There's a lot less plausible deniability in calling in a fake bomb threat, and that would take you straight into terrorism territory. Since, you know, you literally use fear to achieve your goals. Not sure how you can even consider that causing mass panic by faking a terrorist attack is in any way preferable to getting people's flights cancelled by using a drone. There's a lot less physical and human risk in the latter, especially if you give a warning ahead of time. The intent isn't to cause chaos, it explicitly refers to the Gatwick incident and is done with the knowledge that the airport will be shut down the moment a drone is sighted. There's no possibility of casualties or physical losses here. And also won't be nearly as effective, unless you want to detail why it would actually be.

Yes we all remember how unproductive civil disobedience was in both the American Civil rights movement and the Indian freedom movement...

Having had an 18 hour layover in Heathrow, I wasn't aware that outside intervention was required to shut it down.

If you actually wanted to shutdown an airport by flying something in the air, you could run an ArduPilot plane with an automated mission. Throw in soaring to extend battery life. There have been fixed-wing RC aircraft built with solar panels on top, that'll easily last until sundown, especially if you get good thermals. Using an automated mission means that you can't take it down by jamming some sort of controller. You'd need to jam GPS, but if someone was determined enough, they could use an accelerometer and an altimeter to stay close enough to the airport, sensor fusion has lots of errors over a long period of time but it doesn't have to be super accurate. It would have to be physically taken down somehow. I imagine the police wouldn't want to wait for the sun to go down so it drops on its own.

Do you have sources for this? Not to be an asshole, I'd just like to educate myself about the topic and that.

So, are there no unacceptable forms of protest? Is a protest valid because its cause is agreeable and people didn't die? What is the limit? People keep talking about how "protests have to inconvenience people", but that doesn't actually inherently justify any individual protest. Sometimes the costs are, in fact, higher than is justifiable.

Guys I have the perfect solution to this quandary without fear of retaliatory legislation against drone users. Just get a bunch of old Chinese women to throw money at the engines!

Considering how long people have been campaigning for meaningful change, you shouldn't surprised by escalation in tactics. Ultimately, not turning the world into an unlivable wasteland is more important than a few billion pounds of losses for the airlines and an inconvenience for travellers.

I hope the airlines, as well as all the passengers whose flights were disrupted, sue the shit out of anyone stupid enough to try and shut an airport down with drones. It's one thing to block a road, gas is cheap and there's almost always alternate routes, but some people have paid thousands of dollars for their airfare and vacations and these fucks are going to fuck over hundreds of thousands of people, who have collectively spent millions of dollars, and expect to get off Scott-free for it? No. If they do this, every one of them should share in the financial harm they cause not just for the airlines, but for the hundreds of thousands of regular people, who've spent their hard-earned money on things like vacations for their family. You think someone's going to sympathize with these fucks when they're suddenly out $15,000 because these fucks got their flight cancelled, so they missed the start of a vacation tour they and their family are going to go on, and were unable to join it at a later point? Because that's the kind of shit that'll happen. What about when someone misses a flight and doesn't get to see their dying mother one last time? What financial price can you put on that? Fuck these people. I hope every one of them is locked up and charged with the worst penalty they can get.

Sure thing bud. Not an expert on the subject but a quick look nets me this: two of the largest bombings in british history (1) (2) that approached 9/11 levels of financial damage had one and zero casualties respectively and were preceded by telephoned warnings 60 to 90 minutes in advance. some of the deadlier blasts were so deadly precisely because the warnings were, intentionally or otherwise, misleading and/or late (1.1) (1.2) (1.Wikipedia) (2) (2.Wikipedia) ex-ira member condemning the comparison between the 9/11 bombers because they 'always give bomb warnings' (1) Note that the term IRA refers to about half a dozen splinter groups, most of these are from the pIRA during the Troubles.